


Remember You

by So_Ginelle



Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: Amnesia, Angst, Cute, Cutting, Developing Relationship, Established Relationship, Fluff, Love, M/M, Triggers, proposal, relationship building, warning
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-23
Updated: 2013-12-23
Packaged: 2018-01-05 16:47:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 10
Words: 43,584
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1096255
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/So_Ginelle/pseuds/So_Ginelle
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Niall is hit by a car and loses all the memory of being in a relationship with Liam right after he proposes.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to the support of those who helped me write this. It has developed my writing ten fold and I couldn't have done it with out the support of the readers. You guys rock!

It’s funny how true cliché sayings can be sometimes, such as ‘There’s no place like home’ or ‘It’s Five o’clock somewhere’. When you go home, you know that there is no place out there like it. And, truly, it really is always five o’clock somewhere. I never really believed in sayings and clichés and things like that before, but that was before the accident. I suppose it goes without saying that a lot of things changed after the accident and for some reason, I have a feeling that it will never truly be the same again. When someone you love so dearly is nearly ripped out of your life, and you can’t find the strength to hold on anymore, you know how broken it really is. I guess it really is true, though: You don’t truly know what you have until it’s gone.

_____________________________

“Liam, I’m fine!” Liam was fidgeting with Niall’s scarf, trying to pull it tighter on him so he was warmer. Through the whole struggle, Niall was laughing and pulling away, and Liam was concentrating on the scarf to get it the way he wanted it to be. “Baby, please! I’m fine. Besides, the colder I get, the closer I get to stand to you,” he said with a beaming smile on his face.

With a dramatic sigh, Liam let his hands drop and he gave in. “Alright, fine. If you get sick, though, it will be all my fault because I gave up and didn’t tighten your scarf like I should have.” The two of them made it out into the freezing autumn air with the wind nipping at their noses. The first snow had fallen just days ago and the snow sat in a thin layer on the grass and on parts of the sidewalk. It was their two year anniversary, and the two of them planned on going for coffee that morning, just like they did every Friday morning. “Maybe I should get something other than a cappuccino today,” Liam considered as he absentmindedly reached for Niall’s gloved hand. The both of them had bundled up because their coffee shop was four blocks away and they always walked. It didn’t matter that their hands were bundled up; it was just the connection Liam was looking for.

“Not a good idea,” Niall said as he tightened his grip on Liam’s hand.

Liam looked over to Niall with his eyebrow raised. “Why not?” he asked, turning the corner and pulling Niall down the sidewalk a bit.

Niall laughed at Liam’s stare, shaking his head. “Don’t you remember the last time you tried to change your coffee order? You gagged on it and spit it out all over me. And let’s pretend that what I said doesn’t sound perverted.”

“Me? Gag and spit? Never.” Liam snickered, and Niall rolled his eyes. There was maybe two seconds of silence before the two of them burst out into laughter, nearly falling onto the sidewalk, holding their stomachs and using each other for support to stand. The cold air made it hard for them to breathe, and they had to calm down before they could continue walking. They were only a block from the coffee shop, and Niall leaned into Liam as they walked and Liam untangled their hands so he could wrap his arm around Niall’s waist.

Liam started to feel the butterflies dance in his stomach as they got closer to the shop. Two years had flown by with the two of them and Liam had been sure that he wanted to spend the rest of his life with Niall. He was so sure, in fact, that he had planned on proposing that morning. It had taken a little bit of arranging to do, but Liam had given the ring to Danielle – the girl that always did their coffee orders every Friday morning, and had been good friends with he and Niall – and asked her to slip it in the bag they would take out with them once they left, since Niall always ordered a banana-nut muffin to take home with him. He never got two blocks before he opened that back and started eating, which was exactly what Liam was hoping for.

Liam pushed open the door to the small shop, hearing an instant greeting from Danielle and Harry, each of them obviously in a smiling and happy mood. “Good morning, love birds,” Danielle chimed. Liam sent her a look, and she giggled, turning around to get their coffees. “The usual?”

Looking at Niall, who nodded and stepped up to the counter, Liam said “Yeah. How are you two?”

Harry had been making Niall’s coffee as he looked up, his curls bouncing just a bit. “Not as good as you two are. It’s your anniversary, right?” Harry asked, his smile getting bigger. It was pretty obvious that Danielle had shared their little secret, and Liam rolled his eyes, trying to play it off as nothing. “Happy anniversary,” he said was he handed Niall his coffee.

Danielle came back with Liam’s cappuccino and handed it to him. “Enjoy,” she said, winking to the two of them. Niall and Liam went to sit down and drink their coffee just like they always had, sitting at the same table, in the same spot right next to the window.

“What’s with them?” Niall asked with an eyebrow raised in the two workers who had been whispering and giggling behind the counter. Liam shrugged, although he knew exactly what was going on. Liam picked up his coffee, looking down at it. He was about to take a sip when Niall said “Wait.” Liam looked at him, his eyes widening. Had he known? Had he figured it out on his own? “Before our breaths taste like coffee…”

Niall leaned forward and pressed their lips together in a sweet, caring kiss. When he pulled away, Liam smiled brightly, feeling a bit of his nerves disappear. “I love you,” Liam said, picking up his coffee to take a sip.

“I love you too.” The two of them probably just stared at each other with those stupid, sappy smiles on their faces for at least a minute before they looked away to drink their coffees. Then, they so naturally slipped into conversation and got lost in their own little world.

When they finished, they stood up and took care of their mugs and just like usual, Niall went to the counter. “Hit me up, buttercup,” he said to Danielle. The girl nodded, obviously trying to contain a smile. She grabbed a bag and put a muffin in it, and Liam hoped the girl didn’t forget to put the ring in there. Liam paid for everything, since Niall paid last week, and the two of them headed out the coffee shop slowly. “So, what do you want to do today? I mean, today is a pretty special day and all. We should go do something.” Niall grabbed at Liam’s hand and their arms started to swing as they continued down the sidewalk.

Liam was so concentrated on Niall getting the ring out of that bag that he almost didn’t respond to Niall. Jumping a bit, he nodded immediately. “Oh, yeah, of course! Uh, why don’t we go to the movies, or dinner, or something?” He knew Niall would hate the idea simply because they went to dinner all the time and because the only thing the two of them did at the movies was talk, and they were shushed through the whole thing. “Or we could go do something else. Rent a movie and make dinner together?” Liam suggested, shrugging. “Play a game? I don’t really know.”

Niall laughed a bit. “What kind of game? I’ve got a few in mind,” he said, winking to Liam before he felt Niall’s fingers slip out from between his. His heart stopped when Niall pulled their hands apart. Every Friday on their walk, if Niall pulled their hands apart, that meant he wanted to eat his muffin. Niall pulled off his gloves to stuff them into his coat pocket and concentrated on the paper bag. He had opened up the brown bag and had reached inside of it, and Liam watched him carefully to see his reaction. There was a moment of confusion on his face, which Liam guessed it was Niall’s hand hitting something other than the muffin. Very slowly, his hand retrieved something, and it started to retract out of the bag; the action was so slow that it was killing Liam. The male pulled out an open ring box, and Liam watched as Niall dropped the bag with the muffin in it, the muffin rolling out onto the ground.

Liam waited until Niall looked up to him, his eyes going wide. There was silence for a few seconds as they stared at each other “Liam…?” Liam pulled off his own glove and grabbed Niall’s hand, slowly getting down on one knee in the process and putting his other hand on his knee. The male looked up at Niall to and smiled after taking a deep breath, ready to say what he needed to say. “Oh my god…” he whispered. Niall had to pull his hand free from Liam’s and he covered his mouth, still holding the ring box in his other hand.

“Niall, in the past four years of my life, I have made a best friend. When I first met you, I knew that we were going to spend more time together than I had ever spent with anyone. I knew we were going to be best friends, and I knew that every moment together with you had to be great. What I didn’t know was that in two years, I was going to fall in love with you. I didn’t know how much I had fallen in love with your smile, how much time I spent just looking in your eyes, and how much I just loved your addicting personality and that laugh that keeps me going for days at a time. I didn’t know that I would start to learn things about you like how you like your morning tea, or how you hate when your socks are folded before they are put in the drawer. I didn’t know that I would meet your family and fall in love with them as much as you love them. I didn’t know I was going to wake up with you next to me every morning and I didn’t know I was going to get to have you so closely in my life. I am grateful for all of that, and I need you in my life more than you understand. A few months ago, I woke up, watching your chest rise and fall as you slept and realized that I want to spend the rest of my life with you because of how much I care for you and love you, because of how much love you give to me unconditionally and because I know that I will never be able to live my life without you in it. You are everything to me and I couldn’t imagine being in a world without you in it. So… Niall James Horan, will you marry me?”

Niall stayed still for so long with tears pouring out of his eyes that Liam started to think maybe Niall wasn’t ready for this, and maybe he still needed time to think. He could feel his insides screaming out for him as he tried to stay calm, waiting for Niall to respond in some way. About ten seconds later, though, Liam watched as Niall crouched onto the ground with his hand pressed against his face. “Yes!” Niall said in his shaken and raspy voice. “I can’t believe… Yes a million times! I will marry you Liam! I want to marry you!” He nearly jumped on top of Liam, causing him to fall backwards gently onto the sidewalk, and Niall started to pepper his face with kisses, his hands pressed to either side of his face.

“You really want to marry me?!” Liam asked, trying to get a better look at Niall as he attacked his face. The boy wouldn’t give up on kissing Liam. Finally, their lips connected and Liam was already grinning so widely that the kiss was hardly a kiss. It was just a smile against Niall’s own smiling lips. “Oh my god! We’re… we’re engaged! We’re getting married!” Liam shouted out, feeling the tears well up in his eyes. The two of them just lied there wrapped up in each other’s embrace before Niall jumped a bit.

Liam was breathing quickly in all of the excitement. “What is it?” he asked. Niall looked down and picked up the small ring case, looking at it with complete joy and admiration. Liam bit his lip, trying to contain and face-splitting grin. “If… if you don’t like it – ”

“Don’t. I don’t want to hear it. I love it. It’s absolutely perfect. Actually, it’s pretty much the exact ring I wanted to have…” Niall said. He offered the box to Liam, and Liam slowly pulled the ring out. He took Niall’s hand and slid the ring up his ring finger. His breath was caught in his chest at how nicely the ring fit on his finger. “It’s a perfect fit…” Niall said, staring at it with such a large and beaming smile. Liam had never seen so much joy on Niall’s face, it made his heart swell. The knowledge that Niall had been so happy at the idea of marrying Liam had been too much for him to handle. He felt the tears pricking in his eyes, threatening to spill over. Niall had seen them obviously and he cast Liam a worried look. “Baby, what is it?”

Liam shook his head, the smile coming back on his lips. “I’m just so happy…” he whispered, sucking in a shallow breath. Niall pressed forward and kissed Liam’s lips again. He left them there for a while to draw the kiss out as long as he could. When they pulled away, Liam started to chuckle silently. “I love you so much that it hurts,” he whispered again, and Niall smiled. It was then that the two of them realized that they were on the freezing pavement and there were people staring at them. Neither of them cared, though. Niall pulled himself off of Liam and pulled Liam up as he stood. Their bodies were apart for possibly five seconds before they were wrapped up in each other’s arms once again, just holding each other.

Niall looked up to meet Liam’s eyes. “I love you too.” There was no way to tell what kind of secrets were flying back and forth between the two. It was as if they were communicating through some other means without their words. The bliss in the air was unbelievable.

“Hey, let’s go home. I want to go change, and we can call my mum and tell her the news, and we can go visit your mum if you’d like?” Liam asked, pulling away from the hug and taking both of Niall’s hands. He slowly started to walk backwards, tugging Niall back towards their apartment.

“I’d love that. My mum is going to freak out, you realize. She’ll probably want to take a million pictures and she’ll want to hear every single detail of your adorable proposal.” Niall watched Liam grin and he started to get a little bashful. He was about to start teasing him again, when all of a sudden, Liam’s smile faded and his eyes widened.

Their hands tore apart when Liam pulled free and darted so quickly out into the middle of the street. Niall turned and he swore quietly under his breath. “Liam!” He called out, slowly walking to the curb. Niall caught onto what Liam was doing, and his heart swelled. There was a puppy sitting in the middle of the road, and Liam had to go move him.

“Come ‘ere, little guy,” Liam said, picking up the puppy.

“Alright, you’ve got the puppy. Not get out of the road!” Niall said, laughing just a bit. Liam had stood there for a while, cuddling the puppy into the crooks of his arms and petting its ears. Niall was beyond joyed to see how much love and attention Liam could give to this creature. He was so pure and individual that Niall was so proud to say that Liam belonged to him and only him.

His fantasy all came crashing down when he caught his eye on the truck speeding down the road. “Liam!” Niall shouted. It couldn’t have been slower motion. Niall had made a dead run towards Liam, the truck just meters away. “Move! Please!” Niall said, trying to get to him.

Within three seconds time, Niall had pushed Liam so forcefully that he had fallen over onto the concrete, hearing a crack as he hit the pavement with his wrist. The next sound was one out of the horror films, drowning out everything else and completely numbing Liam. The screeching sound of desperate, squealing rubber tires against slick, crunchy pavement, the sound of harsh contact with metal, and an even worse sound that Liam would never be able to forget, as much as he wanted to. He let the puppy slide onto the ground, and he stood up, turning around behind him.

He felt his vision get blurry as he witnessed the scene in front of him. Niall was laying in an unnatural position just feet from the stopped truck in front of him, his arm bent in a mangled position on the pavement. Liam took however many steps it took to get to Niall, falling on his knees hard. “Niall, baby, wake up…” Liam said, putting his hands on his chest, shaking him lightly. “Come on, baby, wake up, you’re okay… you just hit your head…”

Liam looked to Niall’s head, and his heart stopped when he saw something that shouldn’t have been there. With the color draining from his face, Liam’s hand reached into his pocket and he pulled out his cell phone, dialing 911 as fast as he possibly could. There should not have been red in Niall’s hair.


	2. Chapter 2

Everything was motion now. Liam was no longer thinking; he was just moving. He didn’t move Niall’s body because he was afraid of making things worse than it already was. He pulled off his coat so fast and tore off his plaid button up, breaking the buttons in the process. He didn’t care how cold it was. Very carefully, Liam pressed the fabric to the back of Niall’s head, trying to stop the bleeding. He was grateful that there wasn’t a ton of blood yet, since he would have probably thrown up from the sight. His stomach was already doing uncomfortable flips with each second that passed. The person in the truck had gotten out and stumbled towards them, watching carefully. “Niall, come on love. You’re alright… Y-you’re okay… just blink for me, baby… come on!” Liam started to shout. His heart was so tight in his chest and he felt as if every breath he took was cutting through his lungs. He couldn’t lose Niall, he just couldn’t.

 

The lady from the truck fell down next to Liam and he could hear her silent sobs. It only aggravated him more to hear her so he didn’t dare glace in her direction. He caught her hand moving and his head shot up to look at her. She was reaching out to touch his arm, and Liam’s eyes narrowed quickly. The sound that emerged from his throat sounded something like a hiss and a snarl. “Don’t fucking touch him!” Liam never swore, but his emotions were in control of him, pulling him a part, bit by bit. There was no telling what Liam would do in this state. He started to breathe more quickly, feeling the panic come over him. The ambulance was on the way, and Niall was still breathing on his own. It was a good thing.

The lady looked at Liam, and he could see the tears in her eyes. “I-I am so sorry for this… But when I was coming down the hill… I hit some ice… and I tried to swerve so I would miss you, but then he… he came from the other side and pushed you… and I hit him…” She started to cry after that, hiding her face in her hands.

Liam felt himself get weak, almost unable to hold it together any longer. “N-Niall. His name is Niall…” Liam whispered, leaning down to press his head to Niall’s chest. He was still breathing, which was really all he cared about. His body started to shake, and he felt the tears welling down his eyes. The thought of Niall not being in his life anymore really threw him for a loop. He couldn’t possibly imagine a life without Niall in it and the thought almost made him sick.

Liam saw the lady’s hand reach down to touch Niall’s. “You should put his ring in his pocket… He wouldn’t want to lose it…” Liam contemplated for a moment. If he left it on, there was a chance that it got ruined or lost by the doctors. If they put it in Niall’s pocket, it could fall out. He knew the ring was unimportant right now, but he still wanted to hold it. The ring belonged to Niall, and he wanted to feel closer to him. 

“I-I’ll take the ring…” He whispered, holding out his hand.

The girl gave him a strange look. “Do you know him very well?” Liam could hear the skepticism in her voice, and Liam nodded almost immediately.

“I do… I just proposed to him…” Liam said, sucking in a shallow, shaky breath.

It was then that he heard the sirens in the distance, and Liam was grateful that the ambulance was almost there. His hand was still pressed firm against Niall’s head to keep him from bleeding. In a matter of a few moments, the ambulance was there. Three guys ushered both Liam and the girl out of the way. The girl got Liam’s attention and she handed him a card. “I really messed this up. If you need anything at all, please… Please call me.” The lady went back to her own truck, and Liam was being pulled away into the ambulance, taking a seat as two men worked to stabilize him and stop the bleeding. The driver was talking over the intercom to say things that Liam couldn’t make sense of.

Liam wasn’t sure how much time had passed between when he arrived at the hospital to when he was pacing angrily in the waiting room outside the operating room. He had done his fair share of crying, and he was so nervous that something was going to go wrong. The male took a seat, watching in the direction of the OR, just waiting patiently. They had to do something with Niall’s head to stop the bleeding and repair his skull. They also had to relocate his shoulder.

When a doctor emerged, Liam froze, unable to move for what seemed to be forever. The doctor spotted him and gave him a small smile, his face giving Liam just a small bit of hope. “Everything we did went perfectly fine. His arm is back in place, and the bleeding from his head is stopped. He’s going to be okay. He’ll be unconscious for a while, but he’ll wake up on his own.”

Liam felt utter relief run over him, and he felt the tears welling in his eyes. He crouched down and pressed his hands into his face, completely relieved by the knowledge he had received.

________________________________

It had been eight hours, and Liam was sitting in Niall’s ICU room. He had been breaking curfew, but he explained his situation with the proposal, and the nurses let him stay on the condition that he stayed quiet. He was sitting in a chair next to Niall’s bed, his hand holding onto Niall’s. “Remember the time burnt myself on that pan you made soup with? I still have the scar for that on my hand…” he said, looking down at his hand. It was faint, but it was still visible. “You laughed, but you immediately felt bad and you took my hand to kiss it better,” he said as he brought up Niall’s hand to kiss his lip. In his own mind, he was delusional to think that if he kissed Niall like that, he would have woken up, just like Niall had done to make his hand feel better.

There was a shuffle in the room and Liam slowly looked up to see a small lady – one that Liam knew very well – come into the room, followed by two men that Liam also had grown to know over the past four years. Maura‘s – Niall’s mother – eyes were already puffy from the trip to the hospital it seemed, and she looked so fragile. But the lady was strong. It was something Liam had learned about her. Liam never removed his hand from Niall’s when she started to speak. “Has he… has he opened his eyes yet?” she asked.

Liam bit his lip and slowly shook his head, feeling so guilty for having to deliver the the bad news. He could feel the tears pricking in his eyes as he looked over to Greg – Niall’s brother – and Bobby – Niall’s father. They both had worried looks written on their face, and it was obvious that each of them had expressed emotions that involved tears as well earlier on. That just made Liam feel even worse about all of this.

Maura nodded slowly, taking in the information Liam had given her. “I’m so thankful that you’ve been here for him, Liam. At least if he had woken up, you would have been here for him.” The lady took a seat in the other chair, looking down at her son. “I don’t want you to blame yourself for this, because I know that’s what you’re doing. Don’t think at any time that any of us – “

“He pushed me out of the way! If I hadn’t been so stupid, he wouldn’t be here right now. It should have been – “

“Don’t. Do not say that. I forbid you to say it. I will not hear this from you.” Maura was staring at Liam, stern and strict. “He pushed you out of the way because he loves you. I have never seen Niall so happy before, and I know he did it because he wanted you to be out of harm’s way. You mean so much to him, and although I don’t like seeing him like this, because he’s my son, I am so happy to know that there is someone in his life that he would do everything and anything for. I will not have you sit here telling me that it should have been you instead of him.”

Liam nodded slowly and Maura picked up Niall’s right hand, carefully covering it with both of her hands. There was slight confusion that ran over her face and she jumped, slowly uncovering her son’s hand. Her eyes went wide so quickly that they could have popped right out of her skull. The gleaming silver band was obviously what caught her attention. Liam had put the ring back on his finger when they moved him into the ICU. “We were on our way to tell you… I a-asked him to marry me this morning…. Bobby already knew, since I asked him permission yesterday. T was a very awkward conversation, but…” Bobby nodded slowly when she looked up at him. Greg looked equally surprised to know this news. “We were honestly on our way to tell you, but then I had to go get that puppy out of the road… and d now this…” Liam pinched his eyes together, trying to stop himself from crying. Maura’s hand went to her gaping jaw, and he stared at Liam.

Greg stepped over and placed his hand on Liam’s shoulder to comfort him. The touch caused Liam to crumble, and he leaned his shoulders down so he could rest his head on Niall’s stomach. “Liam, everything will be fine. He’s going to wake up, and he’s going to marry you. I know my brother. He will wake up. I just know it.” This had been so difficult for everyone, so they all decided to sti in silence for a while, the quiet piercing into their ears so harshly that no one had enough nerve to fight the intruder. The family watched and shuffled around the room for about an hour, just waiting for something to happen. When the ICU nurse came back to tell them that they couldn’t stay, and only one was allowed to stay the night, Liam offered it to Maura, and was so grateful that she let Liam stay. They went to the hotel for the night, and Liam pulled the chair closer to Niall’s bed, resting his head again on his stomach gently.

He wasn’t sure how long it had been, but the sun was fully down when he woke back up again. Liam let Niall’s hand sit in his hand, and he smiled when he felt Niall’s fingers curl around his hand. Liam tightened his grip, looking up to Niall’s face. That was when he finally realized that Niall’s hand hadn’t moved like that all day. He jumped up out of his seat and hovered over Niall, watching his eyes for a sign of him being awake. “Niall?” Liam croaked out.

There was a slight flutter in his eyes and Liam pressed the call button out of nervousness and excitement to tell the nurses that he had been awake. “Niall, are you up? Are you with me?” Liam asked softly, feeling the relief crash through him. His baby was finally waking up again.

Niall’s eyes slowly opened up, but they snapped shut when the bright light from the monitors and dim lamp in the room met his eyes. A groan escaped his lips, and Niall’s right hand went up to his face. He rubbed his eyes slowly and the lids slowly opened up a bit. “Ugh… what… what happened?  
he asked. Liam heard his raspy voice and he bit back a smile. Niall’s hand reached up to his head and he tried to run fingers through his hair. But the boy winced away when he went too far, and he tried to sit up quickly,

Instinctively, Liam pressed his forearm over Niall’s chest to keep him from sitting up too far or fast. “Careful… the doctor said to be sure you didn’t sit up too quickly. You hit your head pretty hard…”

Liam helped lower Niall back onto the bed, and the blonde male gave into the motion with a sigh, lying back onto the pillow.

Just then, the giant glass door slid open up and a young nurse came into the room. “Hey Niall, how are you feeling?” She asked Niall softly so she wouldn’t hurt his head any more than it already was. The girl rolled over a cart of supplies to start her check up on him.

Liam pulled his arms out of the way to let the nurse do what she needed to do. “My head hurts a lot, and I’m starving, but overall, I’m as great as I could be sitting in a hospital bed…” he said, giving a sleepy and tired smile.

“I’m just going to check on your vitals, alright? I’ll leave you to rest once I’m done, and the doctor will be back to see you in a little bit okay?” She grabbed his wrist and started to check his pulse. “Liam, doll, could you go out to the nurse’s station down the hall and tell one of the other girls that Niall is awake and would like something to eat?”

He didn’t even hesitate to move towards the door. He gave Niall a quick smile, which Niall returned with a half-hearted smile himself. “Thanks… Liam,” he said softly.

When Liam returned, the nurse swung the table in front of him so Liam could set the tray of food down in front of him. “I told them that you liked Nando’s, but there wasn’t much luck.” Liam set the food down and laughed a bit.

Niall laughed in return, shaking his head very slightly. “This is fine. Thanks, Liam.” The nurse finished up with what she was doing and left. There was a bit of silence as Niall surveyed the food in front of him, and he glanced back up at Liam. “You don’t have to be here, you know. I’m alright,” Niall said softly. “I really appreciate it though.”

Liam looked at Niall with a bit of confusion. “Why wouldn’t I be here? Of course I’m staying.” He was a little confused, but maybe Niall was just trying to me fair to him, or something.

Niall sighed. “I feel so bad for making you stay, though. Don’t you have work in the morning? It’s really late…” He reached down and picked up the spoon and the apple sauce in front of him.

Liam, again, shook his head. “I couldn’t leave you here. I was going to take off tomorrow anyway. I’ve got a few vacation days left over, and well, I’m pretty sure my boss will understand missing because you’re in the hospital.” He took a seat in the chair and pressed his lips together. “I should probably call your family. They’ll be happy to know you’re awake.”

Niall raised his own eyebrow, staring back at Liam. “You’ve met my family?”

At first, Liam thought it was a joke. “I know, they’ll be mad that I woke them up, but yeah, they’ll be so happy to know you’re up.” Niall shied away a bit with confusion on his face. “Niall, what’s wrong?”

“I don’t know. I didn’t realize you met my family… How long have you been here?” he asked as he took a bite of his applesauce. That was when Niall had stopped. He looked down at right hand, holding it up to study it. His eyes went wide, and he very quickly pulled the ring off his finger. “Why do I have a ring on my finger?” he asked as he stared at the sliver band.

Liam was trying to understand what was going on, but the absolute shock on Niall’s face scared him. “Ni… You have a ring on your finger because I asked you to marry me,” Liam said softly. He furrowed his brow and licked his lower lip out of nervousness. He felt his worry start to come back and the relief was disappearing.

Niall gave Liam such an incredulous look that Liam was thrown for a loop. Niall started to laugh, but it was short-lived when he realized that Liam was being completely serious. “Liam…” Niall said, trying not to laugh again. “I mean, I know we hit it off pretty well this last month, but I’m pretty content with being single right now.”

Those words hit Liam like a freight train. ‘Content with being single.’ What was that supposed to mean? Being single? They had been together for two years. Even if Niall wanted to change his mind about the engagement, that statement didn’t make any sense! “Babe, what are you talking about?”

“Babe? Okay, Liam, you’re starting to scare me a bit.” Niall set the ring down on the table. “I don’t know what you’re asking, mate.” Niall shrugged, focusing on his food.

Liam heard the door open up again, but he couldn’t pull his eyes away from Niall. He rarely called Liam ‘mate’ anymore. He called Liam ‘babe’ or ‘love’ or ‘honey’. He hadn’t called Liam his ‘mate’ since they were only best friends and before they were dating. “Ni… How long do you think we’ve known each other?”

“That’s a strange question, don’t you think? I’ve known you for like… six months, Liam.” Niall continued to eat. He had said what he did in such an easy, carefree way, and Liam froze at the last two words.

The walls that had been holding Liam up fell almost instantly, and Liam’s jaw unhinged as he tried to make sense of what Niall had said. Someone had cleared their throat, and the doctor walked forward. “Hello, Niall, I’m Doctor Lance. How are you feeling tonight?”

Niall shrugged, setting his spoon down and pushing the table slightly out of the way. “I could be better, but I’m not complaining. Liam’s acting a bit strange, though. You might want to check out his head,” Niall said, laughing just a bit. “So what happened?”

The doctor cautiously turned to Liam, then back to Niall. “You don’t remember what happened?” he asked. Liam knew that it was as bad as he had expected it to be with the doctor looking at him like that. “Alright, Niall, I’m just coming here to tell you what to expect for the next few days. You’re going to be here so we can watch your head heal for a while. You did hit it pretty hard, and it caused some damage to your skull. You’re going to be on pain medications for a while. If we think you’re healing up pretty well, you’ll be out of here in probably two days or so. In those two days, it would be best if you kept your head fairly still and didn’t let it fall back onto the bed very hard. You can turn your head to look at someone, but none of these…” The doctor started to whip his head back and forth for effect and Niall laughed. “I’m just going to talk to Liam for a moment and he’ll be right back, okay?”

Liam moved towards the door with the doctor and stepped out. He followed him down the hall a bit and stopped when he did. There was nothing left in Liam’s head: he was just going with the motions now. “So, from what you and the driver told me and from the police report, Niall was hit by a truck. That’s what I know, and he doesn’t seem to remember it. There is a chance that Niall is suffering from retrograde amnesia. I’d like to run a few more tests to check out the kind of damage that happened to his brain, alright?”

Amnesia? Liam had heard of it, of course, but he never thought that someone so close to him would ever suffer from it. “Doctor… If Niall is suffering from amnesia, will he get his memory back?” Liam was quiet when he spoke, trying not to get too angry or worked up about this. ‘I’ve known you for like… six months, Liam.’ Niall had only known him for six months in his mind. Six months was when they really started to hit it off, becoming best friends and getting infinitely closer to each other in their relationship. Six months was eighteen months was from the day Niall confessed to Liam that he had loved him and they started a relationship. Six months was forty two months away from the day Liam asked Niall to marry him. Niall was missing forty two months of memory. That was almost four years.

The doctor sighed. “In most cases, Liam, the patient doesn’t regain their memory. There have been miracles, though. You were given a miracle from what I have heard, so maybe he’ll be given one too?” The doctor suggested before walking back towards Niall’s room. Liam followed him. “I have notified the nurse to call his family. You’re welcome to stay still, but just understand that he may not want you around the whole time. If he’s only known you for six months, since you’ve claimed to know him for four years, he needs to know that he’s been suffering from amnesia. It may be better if his family were there too.”

Liam didn’t have anything to say to that, and he just followed the doctor back into the room. The doctor spoke and left after Niall asked a few questions. Niall had been in shock from receiving the news and it was obvious that he hadn’t believed the doctor, but Liam knew the truth. Liam knew the doctor was right. Niall wasn’t the same Niall he had been twelve hours ago.

The blonde lad stared straight ahead, looking down at his bed sheets and his hands. “So… Is what that doctor said true? I mean, it doesn’t feel like I’ve misplaced nearly four years of my life. I mean, I still remember you!”

When Niall said that, Liam bit his lip harshly. “The doctor is right, Niall. I don’t want to scare you, though, so when your family comes, I’ll let them explain it to you.”

“Explain what to me?” Niall said, looking up to Liam with his faded blue orbs. It was obvious that this news was affecting him quite a bit, and the thought made Liam feel so bad about all of this. He couldn’t bear to see Niall like this, but the problem was, Liam didn’t know how to help him right now. Three and a half years to think back to was such a long time, and he couldn’t remember how he used to help Niall at times like this, or how he used to comfort him. They used to touch each other – not in that sense – before they were in a relationship. They’d hug each other, cuddle up with each other… They even slept in the same bed a few times and curled up with each other before they started to date. But Liam couldn’t remember what six months was anymore. He couldn’t even imagine only being in Niall’s life for six months, or Niall only being in his life for six months. “Liam, tell me, please.”

He couldn’t hold off on telling him anymore. But how was he supposed to tell Niall without freaking him out or without him hating Liam? Niall didn’t even think he was gay before the two of them started dating, and that was what made everything so much more difficult. “Alright, alright. You’re not going to like this, though, Niall…” Liam took a seat next to his bed, folding his hands over each other. He looked up and met Niall’s eyes, taking a deep breath. “Niall… I don’t know how to tell you this, but, yes, you have definitely lost a big chunk of your memory. I mean… it’s 2013, and we’ve known each other for four years. Four years exactly, actually, on today…”

Niall smiled, although it was obvious that he still wasn’t believing him. “I feel like I’ve known you forever, Li, but I can’t believe that I’ve been in your life for four years and I don’t remember it. Anyway… is there more you want to say?” He asked, reaching out to rub Liam’s shoulder.

Liam pinched his eyes close and tried to ignore the physical contact. “Yeah. There… there’s a lot more. Niall… when you saw that ring, I wasn’t… joking when I said I had proposed to you. I actually proposed to you earlier today… before the accident…” Liam said, looking away and biting his lip to stop himself from crying. He wasn’t sure what tears were left anymore, but it didn’t matter. When Niall didn’t say anything, Liam looked up to see Niall’s eyes wide. “W-we’ve… we’ve been together for two years… In a relationship. Not just a friendship… an actual, romantic and exclusive relationship…” Liam said, whispering the last part.

There was a silence in the room as Niall and Liam stared at each other. Niall was frozen, and Liam had only ever seen him like this on a few occasions. Even Niall’s hand was clamped tightly onto Liam’s shoulder, unmoving. The silence broke finally when the door opened up again. Liam glanced up to see Niall’s family walking into the room, and Maura had a conflicting look on her face. “Niall? Sweety?”

Niall didn’t look up for a moment, and he seemed to be even more shocked to see his family in the room. “Oh, mum!” Niall said, and the lady threw herself onto Niall, the male squirming in the bed. “Mum, mum! It’s okay! I’m alright!” Niall said, laughing just a little bit. Liam stood up from the chair to give the rest of the family a little space, pressing himself against the wall.

“How are you feeling baby? Oh… I was so worried,” she said, tears obviously streaming down her face.

“I’m doing find, mum. You’re crushing me, though…” Niall said with tears in his own eyes. Maura pulled away from Niall just a little and kissed his face a few times. Then Greg was next, hugging Niall tightly and whispering things in his ears and saying things. Bobby did the same, and the family stood around him, chatting happily with him. They had been informed of the possible amnesia affecting him, and they were trying to help him out a bit. Niall glanced back up at Liam and bit his lip, blinking a few times. He could see the tears pricking in his eyes, and Liam just wanted to reach out and hold him forever.

Niall looked down again, biting his lip. “Uhm… Liam? I… I appreciate y-you being here for me and all… b-but could I have some time alone with my family? I just… I really need some time,” he said, not looking back up.

He felt crushed. He felt broken. Everything right in his life was just going wrong, and now he couldn’t do anything about it. Feeling his lungs collapse inside of him, he knew he didn’t have the strength to speak anymore. He just nodded and stepped out of the room with his jacket. After spending twelve hours in the hospital, maybe it really was time to go home.

If it were really home, though, why did it feel like such a foreign place to go back to?


	3. Chapter 3

After a restless night of tossing and turning, Liam sat up when the sun had finally started coming up and looked at the clock. It was six thirty, and he hadn’t slept all night. How could he, though? When Liam got home that night, he couldn’t even go into his and Niall’s room, let alone sleep in the bed that his boyfriend was supposed to be in with him. He decided to sleep in the guest room and nothing felt right. His eyes were strained, his mind was overworked, and Liam didn’t think he had the strength to go to work that day.

Moments after he called in to his boss – who wasn’t happy that Liam had took a day off on a Saturday – Liam got out of bed and shuffled through the house, dragging his feet and trying to move on with the day. But with every step he took, his eyes wandered to something of Niall’s that had been in the house. His old sneakers by the door that he refused to get rid of, his extra jacket on the coat hook, his sweatshirt balled up on the couch, everything reminded him of Niall. They were still… friends, right? That was a start, at least, but Liam couldn’t help but hate every minute he spent without Niall.

He dragged himself into the kitchen and started pulling out the cereal from the cabinet when his phone rang in his pocket. The male fished it out and was surprised to see Niall’s name – well, actually, it said ‘My Baby’ – and face on the screen. It was only six forty five in the morning, and that was early for Niall to be awake. He pressed the send button and pressed the earpiece to his ear, anticipation growing. “Hello?” he said softly. Normally, his greeting would have been ‘Hey, babe’ or ‘what’s up, love?’ Right now, though, he didn’t want to overstep his boundaries.

“Hey, Li,” Niall said in a soft, straining voice. He sounded so tired, but there was optimism in his voice. “Sorry to call you so early…” he started, trailing off just a bit. Liam could imagine him curled up in that hospital bed with the bandages on his head and the tubes still going in and out of his arm. He could still imagine him being so fragile in the hospital as if one move would break him.

Liam shook his head as if Niall could see it, and said “No, no! It’s fine. You can always call me at any time.” He was a bit too sure with his words, and he hoped Niall didn’t find Liam’s words strange.

“I know. You’ve told me that before, but I haven’t actually called you this early before…” Niall said, laughing very softly. The laugh made Liam smile. He had always loved Niall’s laugh and it always helped things, even in a situation like this.

What Niall said only made things so much more real for him. Niall had called him at three in the morning on multiple occasions before they were living together just to hear Liam’s voice. Niall really was suffering from amnesia. “Oh. Sorry… I wasn’t sure when I had told you that,” Liam admitted.

There was a bit of silence for a moment as the two just remained in their own little worlds. “Uhm… Liam, would you mind coming to the hospital? That is, if you actually took today off. If not, don’t take today off just to come here…”

Liam’s stomach started to churn just a bit. Why did Niall want to see him? Did he want to talk about where they stood? “I actually called my boss a few minutes ago to take off, so, I can be there whenever you want me to be,” Liam said, putting the cereal back in the cabinet and leaning against the counter. “I mean, if you give me ten minutes to shower and change, I could be there in the next half hour… but I don’t know if you want me there this early,” Liam said, letting out his own shaky, hesitant laugh.

“I want you here this early.” Niall’s words had been so instantaneous that Liam honestly had mulled the words over in his head for a while. He did want him there this early, meaning that Niall really wanted to see him. “You don’t have to, of course, but, I really think… I really think we need to talk about things…”

Liam sighed, agreeing internally that they really did need to talk. “I agree… We do need to talk. I’ll be there soon, okay?”

“Okay. Thanks, Li… Oh, uhm, you wouldn’t mind bringing me some things, would you? I mean, if my stuff really is all over at…your – I mean our place, then my parents can’t really bring me anything…”

“Of course. I’ll grab your lap top and some clothing, since you’ll need some for when you can leave. I’ll see you soon.” Liam said goodbye before hanging up the phone and going to go hop in the shower. He started to rush through his morning routine, showering and changing within seven minutes time. Liam slowed down a bit to grab a few things for Niall, grabbing what was – or used to be – his favorite shirt and a pair of sweat pants that Niall claimed to be his own, even though they belonged to Liam. There was some desperation in his actions to get to Niall, and he rushed to his car after grabbing a jacket and locking the door behind him.

The fifteen minute trip to the hospital seemed to take ages as he watched road signs and other cars pass by. His mind had been playing through scenarios of what his and Niall’s conversation would be like, and each one seemed to get worse and worse in his mind. His phone buzzed when he pulled into the parking lot, and it had been a text from Niall saying that they had moved him to a different room. He took note of that and slipped his phone into his pocket, walking quickly through the hospital with his bag filled with Niall’s things. Many nurses had told him to slow down, but he just couldn’t. Niall actually wanted him there, and he was determined to be there for him like he wanted him to be.

Liam stopped in front of the room and took a deep breath. He could do this. He knew he could do this. Liam finally reached out and knocked. “Come in,” Niall said. Liam pushed the door open slowly and looked to see Niall sitting up in his bed, eating like usual. The male still had so many of his same tendencies that Liam wondered if maybe he hadn’t totally lost all of his four years of memory. “Hey, Li. That was fast,” Niall said, raising an eyebrow out of question.

Liam laughed a bit out of nervousness, feeling a bit embarrassed about how quick he had gotten there. He came into the room and set Niall’s things on the end of his bed as he took a seat in one of the chairs placed in the room. “I probably started speeding or something. I don’t know.” That was a lie, he knew it. He wasn’t one to speed down the road, unless something important had happened or terrible had happened. Niall knew – or at least, he used to know – that Liam stuck to the rules. It was uncharacteristic of him to break the rules.

He could see the strange look on Niall’s face. “I never took you for a rule breaker, Liam,” Niall said as a grin spread over his cheeks. For someone who had been hit by a truck less than twenty four hours ago, he was certainly cheery. That was the happy-go-lucky, carefree attitude that Liam had loved so much, since it was so different from the way he had lived his life. “Thanks for coming.” The boy looked down at his hands, obviously holding something in them. It was his wallet, and Liam became curious to know why Niall had his wallet in his hand. “So, you know…” Niall started, laughing just a bit, “When I asked for my things back, I didn’t recognize my shirt or my shoes… I didn’t know I had a new phone, and this wallet wasn’t the wallet I was expecting it to be. I love the wallet, though. It’s so much better than what I had.” Liam gave Niall a sad smile, slowly realizing how hard this must have been for him too. He had woke up thinking he was nearly four years younger and had lost four years of his life. It wasn’t just Liam and Niall’s family that had been suffering. “When I first saw you after waking up, too, I thought that I had been dreaming. Your hair never used to be that short, and your face is a little more… defined, I guess you could say. I guess it really is sinking in that I’m missing such a large chunk of my life… and since I spent so much of my time with you in the last four years, I didn’t know who else to talk to…”

There was a look of frustration on Niall’s face, one that Liam had seen many times and knew how to handle it. “Hey, it’s alright. I mean, I can tell you anything you want to know about your life. I can help you out. I mean… I know how different it may sound to you and how strange it may seem, but we have been in a relationship for two years. I know quite a bit about you,” Liam said, inching the chair closer.

Liam watched as Niall moved all the way over on the bed, and he patted the space next to him. “Those chairs look uncomfortable. Come on,” Niall said, offering the space to Liam too.

For a moment, Liam just stared. “A-are you sure? I mean, I’m fine sitting here…” he said, looking at the space Niall had been patting. “If it makes you uncomfortable, really, the chair isn’t that uncomfortable.” Liam really wanted to hop on that bed with Niall. He really wanted to throw his arms around him and comfort him – hold him. He wanted to run his fingers through his hair, and most of all, he just wanted to kiss him again and never stop. But Niall didn’t even think they were in a relationship, so he knew there were so many more boundaries that he couldn’t cross anymore.

“Well, if you’re going to tell me stories, I want you up here. So come on before I change my mind and I shoo you out so I can get some sleep.” Niall had smiled, and Liam sighed as he slid into the bed, trying to keep some space between Niall’s and his own body. Niall obviously wouldn’t have any of that nonsense, though, and he moved closer to Liam. Had they really been this close at six months? Close enough that Niall still felt comfortable with their arms touching and their legs pressed together? “I don’t know why you’re acting so distant. I mean, if we really were in a… relationship, why are you acting like this, then?”

Liam laughed a bit, shaking his head. “Niall, I don’t remember exactly how we acted with each other three and a half years ago. I’m just afraid of overstepping my boundaries, that’s all.” Liam relaxed into the bed and looked over at Niall. “So, what kind of stories am I telling you?”

Niall shrugged, leaning into the bed a little bit too. “Well, I did have something I wanted to know the story behind…” Liam watched as Niall opened his wallet. His eyes went wide when he saw Niall had carried around a picture of him in his wallet and the thought just made his heart swell up. That was something Niall had done that Liam didn’t even know about. Niall fished something out of his wallet and Liam’s eyes went to the strip of pictures, smiling instantly. Liam had carried the same thing around in his wallet. “So, where is this one from?” There were five pictures. The first one, the two of them had their sunglasses on and the two of them were making what people would have called ‘duck faces’. The second one had been a picture of Niall getting really close to the camera and Liam just laughing in the back. Next had been the two of them faced towards each other with what looked like their angry, screaming faces. Liam’s favorite had been the forth one, because it was one of Niall kissing his temple, and the fifth had been an image of the two of them kissing, their hands pressed on each other’s faces.

Liam’s finger ran over the film strip as he remembered the day the two of them had done that. It was actually the day before their friends Zayn and Perrie had gotten married, and they walked around the shopping plaza for a few hours before stumbling across the photo booth. They had been shopping for a while, and they had just eaten, so they were both in a good mood. They spent probably a half hour in that booth, just taking pictures and spending more and more money in there. About eight film strips later, the two of them printed out two extra copies of the last one, since it had been their favorite of all of them. They still had the other photo strips; they were just tucked away in a photo album somewhere. “Well?” Niall asked, smiling quite a bit.

“The kiss doesn’t freak you out at all?” Liam asked as he looked back up at Niall.

“No, it does freak me out. But it’s you and I trust you. You’re my best mate, so I trust you to… help me with all of this. You mean a lot to me, ya know?” Niall had bit his lip, staring down at the pictures. “You know, the other thing I hadn’t realized was I had my braces off. I didn’t have them off four years ago. It hit me last night after my family left,” Niall said as he laughed again. Niall didn’t have braces in the pictures either, so he wondered if maybe Niall had found the picture last night.

“You got them off about three years ago, Nialler,” Liam said, laughing just a little bit in return. “Anyway… did you still want to know about that day?” He pointed down to the pictures, still staring at the last two that made his heart twist. He didn’t know when he was going to be able to do that with Niall again, and the thought was killing him. Niall nodded but kept his eyes down on the pictures.

“So, you know Zayn, right? Or is that already too much for you?” Liam asked. Niall nudged him, and he heard his laugh surface again.

“Yes, I know Zayn. I’ve known Zayn longer than you have.”

Liam nodded, putting up a hand. “Okay, alright. Anyway, you know his girlfriend Perrie, right?” He looked at Niall’s look on his face, and the lad nodded. “Well, they actually got married, Ni,” Liam said, nodding when Niall gave him an skeptical look.

“Really? When was this?” Niall asked, pointing down to the photo strip again.

“About a year ago. Not even, actually. It was January of this last year.” Niall’s jaw dropped and he started to shake his head again. “Hey, the doctor said you weren’t supposed to do that,” Liam pointed out.

Niall stopped, sighing when he realized Liam was right. “I know. But, wait, how does this tie in with the photo strip?”

Liam had explained the story, and has started into a story telling time with Niall. It had been probably an hour in when Niall had leaned his head against Liam’s shoulder and Liam had put his arm over Niall’s shoulder. They stayed like that for a while, just talking and listening to each other carefully. It wasn’t long before Niall has slid down, resting his head on Liam’s chest. Liam had just started a story about their coffee shop trips when he felt Niall’s breathing regulate against him. He couldn’t help but tighten his grip on Niall’s shoulder, so glad to have Niall in his arms again.

_________________________

“Sweetie, are you sure you want to do this?” Maura asked, trying to straighten out her son’s collar. Niall swatted her hand away and groaned. “Okay, okay! I just wanted to make sure you were completely okay with this. I’m okay with it too, but I was just making sure you were okay with it and everything.” Mrs. Gallagher pulled her hands away and smiled, looking over at Liam who had an even bigger smile on his face. Niall had agreed to live with Liam until they sorted things out. If the time came when Niall didn’t want to live with Liam anymore and still needed time to process things on his own, he would go live with his mum or dad, whichever he thought was best.

Liam hefted Niall’s bag over his shoulder and put his hands on the back of the wheel chair. “If you make me fall, Payne, your last name will be more than just your last name.” Liam snickered a bit, enjoying Niall’s humor. The doctor came in and gave them the ‘OK’ to leave, handing Niall and Liam a set of instructions, and giving Niall his pain medication prescription for the next few weeks or so. “Let’s go! I want to see what this apartment looks like,” he said, bouncing a bit in the wheelchair.

As he pushed Niall down to the car, he couldn’t help but notice how dark Niall’s roots had gotten. He did, after all, miss an appointment to go get his hair re-dyed. Niall was considering cancelling it because he had been sick of the blonde hair, but he knew three years ago, Niall wasn’t that way and he dyed it as soon as his brown roots were more than half an inch long, even if they weren’t actually visible. He helped Niall stand as they approached his car, and Niall rolled his eyes. “You know, I’ve got a head injury, not a leg injury. I’m perfectly capable of doing these things.”

Liam frowned, letting his hand fall out of Niall’s. Usually, he would have left it, but he knew it wasn’t appropriate. Niall still needed time, and he respected that. “I like helping you, though. But, fine…” Liam said, pouting just a bit. Niall reached up and ruffled Liam’s hair, the action making his frown disappear instantly. He couldn’t tell you what those little motions meant to him. They just made everything worthwhile again.

Niall said goodbye to his mum and hopped into the car. Liam was about to do the same when she pulled him aside. “Hey. I know that you’re excited that he wants to come back to you, and I am more than relieved that he wants to go back with you and try to make things work again. Whatever you do, don’t give up on him. He fell in love with you once, and he’ll fall in love with you again.” Liam bit his lip harshly to keep himself from tearing up. It felt so great to know that Niall’s mum believed in him like she did, giving Liam the encouragement he needed to keep going with this. Niall was worth it. Niall was always worth it. “I have never met someone that has treated my son with so much respect and has so much compassion and love for him. Tell me… promise me that you won’t give up on him. He needs you, Liam. He needs you in his life now more than ever.”

Liam felt the tears pricking in his eyes, and he nodded. “I promise you, Maura. I will not ever give up on your son. I… I love him too much to do that.”

She walked closely to him and wrapped a hug around him, Liam returning the gesture. “Thank you, Liam. Thank you…” Liam nodded and pulled away, giving her a smile as he sat down in the car. Niall raised an eyebrow to Liam questioningly, but he just shrugged and smiled, still bouncing in his seat.

“Someone’s excited,” Liam said, laughing just a bit as he started the car and turned on the radio. Niall reached out to switch the station – just like he always did, and stopped on the one he had always stopped on. Liam smiled even brighter than he had been, and Niall caught the smile.

“What?” he asked, seeing the smile being directed towards him.

Liam just shook his head. “Nothing, nothing. It’s just that some things never change. You used to do that every time we got into the car to go somewhere.” Niall shrugged and Liam kept smiling, not fighting Niall on that action like he had been known to do in the past.

“So this apartment is fifteen minutes away… When did we even move here?” Niall had been asking questions nonstop, but it didn’t bother Liam at all. He enjoyed answering him and he was glad that Niall was trying to gather up as much information as he could.

Liam drove down the road, thinking about the day the two of them had moved in together. “Almost a year and a half ago is when we decided to move in together. Since we had known each other for two years at that point, we figured that it wasn’t a bad idea, since we were spending every day together anyway.” Liam could remember the first time they slept in their bed. They didn’t even do anything sexual. They just slept next to each other, holding each other and smiling with absolute joy that they had been in an apartment that they shared. It was just perfect.

Liam pulled into the driveway and turned off the car once they had gotten there. Niall looked up to the apartment, smiling brightly. “Wow, this is really cool,” he said, getting out of the car carefully. Liam grabbed Niall’s bag out of the back and lead Niall into the house. He let Niall step through the door first, and he watched as Niall turned to look at everything. He was silent as his jaw unhinged to look at everything that had been there.

The brunette shut the door behind him as he watched Niall look at everything. The male walked down the hall and pushed open the different doors, discovering the two bedrooms, the bathroom, and the store room in the back. Then he came back, walking through the living room and out to the kitchen. Liam laughed a bit as Niall walked around. “So? What do you think?”

Niall came back out and took a seat on the couch, relaxing into the cushions. He smiled brightly to Liam for a moment before he started to look around again. “I could definitely get used to this.”


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Warning - this chapter contains triggering content. Use your discretion.

Three days had passed since Niall had decided to move in with him again and Liam very quickly realized that something had been wrong with Niall. Liam had been given the rest of the afternoon off and he decided that today would be a good day to surprise Niall with food from Nandos that he picked up on the way home. He knew all of Niall’s favorites, although it was very possible that things had changed over the past three and a half years.

The male maneuvered the two brown bags of food in his arms so he could easily open the door, and once he made it inside, he hip-checked the door close. “Hey, Niall! I’m home early,” he called out, making his way towards the kitchen so he could set the food down. “I’ve got a surprise for you, so come on out!” Liam started to pull the food items out of the bags, smelling them and nodding out of satisfaction. He got everything around and opened up a few containers. “You’re gonna love it,” he called out again, reaching up into the cabinet to get two plates and some silverware. Slowly, it dawned on him that Niall hadn’t responded to anything he had said.

 

Liam slowly made his way out into the living room, glancing around to see Niall wasn’t out there. Then, he made his way to the hallway, not seeing Niall in any of the main parts of the flat. “Niall?” he called down the hall, hesitantly making his way back to Niall’s room which had been the guest bedroom before. When he approached the door, he knocked gently, leaning his arm on the door. “Nialler? You in there?” When Liam didn’t hear a response, he put his hand on the doorknob and pushed the door open.

His eyes slowly glanced over to Niall’s body sitting on his bed. The male had been looking down, pulling a sleeve over his arm gently. “Hey,” Liam said softly when he noticed Niall hadn’t been very responsive to his entering of the room.

“Oh, hey,” Niall said in response, still not looking up. Liam heard a sniffle come from Niall, and his eyes widened. Niall was never sick, even though Liam knew he was more prone to sickness now that he had been injured and his immune system was probably down.

Liam approached the bed, sitting down next to him gently. When he looked at Niall’s cheeks, they were a little flushed and he could see the tear stains on them. His heart twisted uncomfortably and he wrapped an arm around Niall’s shoulder. “What’s wrong?” he asked carefully. Niall and he had never kept secrets, but for all he knew, Niall could have had secrets tucked away in his mind that he thought Liam didn’t already know about. He couldn’t stand seeing Niall like this one bit. “You can tell me anything, you know…” The male rubbed Niall’s shoulder for comfort, trying to make him feel better.

Niall let out a shaken breath and he looked up to Liam. He still had tears in his eyes, and Liam bit his lip so he didn’t say anything else. “I don’t think you want to know, honestly,” Niall said, looking back down again at his hands again. Liam’s eyes traveled there too, and his eyes caught onto the red colored fingertip, dried on blood sitting on his skin. “Ni, when were you bleeding?” he asked, pointing to the finger. He picked up Niall’s hand and watched the sleeve drop just a bit. Out of curiosity, Liam pushed the sleeve down gently to be met with something he never wanted to see. On Niall’s arm had been a long, thin cut. It was very recent, and it went down about a fourth of his arm. His face went white as he looked to Niall, seeing how the male was looking so far away from him and trying to pull away. “Stay here,” he said sternly as he stood up. The male made his way towards the bathroom and quickly fumbled through the medicine cabinet to get a washcloth and some bandages, as well as some Neosporin to clean up the cut and disinfect it. Liam didn’t know how Niall had done it, why he had done it, or what made him think it was a good idea, but he was determined to figure out the reason behind this.

Liam returned quickly to Niall’s room to see that Niall hadn’t moved from where he was sitting. Liam kneeled down in front of Niall and tried to pull the male’s arm towards him, but Niall was reluctant to let him do so. “Liam, I can take care of this meself,” he said, his Irish accent thicker than normal in his depressed, emotional state. “I don’t want to be babied.”

When their eyes met, there must have been a look in Liam’s eyes, because Niall was quick to let Liam help him. “I don’t care. I’m going to help you because you need it, and it doesn’t matter to me whether or not you actually want the help or not. I won’t watch you go through this.”

Niall bit his lip as Liam started to work, gently washing the blood away from his arm. Niall flinched a few times at the sensitivity and the pain in his arm, but he didn’t say anything because he knew he had caused that pain on himself. Liam finished washing the cut, and he gently rubbed the paste medication on the lad’s arm, wrapping it up with a gauze bandage and taping it together. He made sure it was just tight enough that it wouldn’t move too much, but loose enough that it wouldn’t hurt the male. This whole thing was so confusing to Liam. Never once had Niall mentioned self-harming himself, and Liam had never watched the male do this before. It really frightened him, but he wasn’t sure how to go about the information.

There were a few moments of silence as Liam kept his eyes on Niall’s arm. He didn’t want to get too worked up about this because he didn’t want to do more damage than what had already been done. He glanced up to meet Niall’s eyes, which he had been surprised to see looking back at him. “Ni… Why are you doing this?” he asked carefully, letting his fingers wander over Niall’s hand. He couldn’t tell you how much he missed holding Niall’s hand. He was starting to miss even just the little things like a morning kiss, a brush of a hand against Liam’s face, that knowing smile they gave each other in silence. It was all starting to add up, but Liam was staying strong about this. He could wait as long as Niall needed, even if it took another three years. But with this, Liam had become even more lost. “When did you… start doing this?” he asked, trying to figure out if this was a new thing that happened because of the accident.

Niall licked his lower lip before pressing them into a thin line. His eyes squinted as he tried to prevent more tears, and the moment they fell, Liam was ready to catch them, wiping them away with his thumb. “I’ve been… I’ve been doing this for probably a year now…” he whispered to Liam, actually meeting his eyes. “I haven’t done it for a few weeks… but, with everything going on, I just don’t know what came over me…” Niall said. Liam watched as Niall folded over himself, his hands pressed to his face and his stomach pressed to his legs. It hurt to see Niall like this, and Liam started to crumble a bit. “I-I didn’t want to tell you b-ecause you were making it so much better for me. Meeting you c-changed everything for me…”

Without hesitating, Liam got up to slide onto the bed, and he pulled Niall up into a hug, holding him so tightly. He would do this until the tears stopped. He would do this until Niall was better. He would do this as long as he needed to do it. “Shh…” Liam whispered out, rubbing Niall’s back as the male cried against his chest and shoulder. He pressed his chin onto Niall’s head, holding him so closely. The tears were dampening Liam’s shirt, and he could feel his own tears rolling down his face. “It’s okay, Niall… It’s okay…” Liam said, rocking back and forth just a little bit. “We can… You can get through this,” he corrected, forgetting that they weren’t in a relationship for a moment. “There are other ways…”

He kept Niall just like that for probably about fifteen minutes or so, not willing to let go of him right now. They were both feeling so fragile. “Thank you,” Niall whispered, his face still pressed against Liam’s shoulder. The male still didn’t move, but Liam readjusted his arms so he could pull away from Niall to look at him. He didn’t say anything, he just watched Niall, trying to understand.

Niall finally pulled away, sniffling just a bit, but there was a trace of a smile on his lips. “I’m always here for you,” Liam said, doing everything he could not to lean in and kiss Niall right then. He had to stop himself, though. Niall wasn’t ready, and he couldn’t force him to do that. “You mean more than you’ll ever know to me. I can’t watch you do things like this…” Niall nodded, looking down again.

“I know that now… and I promise you this won’t ever happen again.” Liam smiled just a little bit, pulling Niall into another hug. It was a quick hug, and he stood up to pull Niall with him to go get food. “Do I smell Nandos?” Niall asked, chuckling just lightly.

Liam nodded, pulling Niall out the door and letting their hands drop. “Of course it’s Nandos. It’s cold Nandos now, but it’s still Nandos. We can reheat it if you’d like. I’m pretty sure I got all of your favorites. It was almost the whole menu, by the way,” Liam said, getting a deserved elbow into the side by Niall as they made it out to the kitchen. Liam went to the food and felt the definitely cooled down containers. “I’ll turn on the oven,” Liam said, chuckling just a bit as Niall surveyed over the food. He gave Liam a thumb up and sat on the stool behind the counter.

Once the food had been reheated, Liam served some onto plates for them, handing one to Niall. “Let’s eat at the couch. The match is on, and I’d love to watch it,” Niall said, smiling again. Liam nodded in agreement. He couldn’t remember the last time the two of them watched the game together, so it was definitely something worth doing. He grabbed his plate and pulled Niall over to the couch, ready to watch the game.

___________________________________

The two of them spent the rest of their night curled up on the couch with containers of Nandos food lying on the table in front of them. They were watching TV, and Niall’s head had been resting in Liam’s lap as they watched the football match. “Oh, come on! That was definitely a dangerous slide tackle. The ref has no idea what he’s doing,” Niall said, pointing at the screen and gesturing in frustration.

Liam nodded, absentmindedly running his fingers through Niall’s hair like he had been for the last five minutes. Niall didn’t seem to mind, so he just kept at it. “I know. At least he caught the obvious push. That poor guy flew…” Liam said, his eyes glued down to Niall’s face.

“Yeah, I know. He had it coming, though. I know how rude it sounds, but he was being an idiot. I’m surprised they didn’t take him out.” Niall also had his eyes glued to the screen, letting a yawn escape his lips. The combination of the food and the wine, the couch and the television were starting to take a toll on Niall, especially after the day he had been having. Liam felt his eyes starting to droop as Niall yawned again. More time passed, and the boys just kept watching the game like they were, not moving one bit. “Penalty shot… yay…” Niall said, his tone obviously not excited.

It wasn’t long before Niall had fallen asleep on Liam’s lap. Liam was sleeping too, his hands still wrapped up in Niall’s hair. The television was still going, causing Niall to jump awake when a call had been made on the screen. He looked up to see Liam had been asleep, his eyes closed and his jaw slackened making him all that much cuter. Being how tired he was, Niall simply sat up and gently adjusted Liam so he could lie down against him. The male was comfortable to lie against, there was no denying it. Liam seemed to move naturally into a laying position, his body sliding down onto the couch. Before he leaned against him, Niall shut off the television so the two of them could get some actual rest. He was too tired to move to his room, and he never had a problem with laying with his best mate before then. Niall pressed his body against Liam’s, staring into the males face as he slept. “I’m definitely falling for you…” Niall whispered, closing his eyes and slipping back into sleep again.

When daylight had come out, Liam’s eyes slowly opened to find Niall’s face just inches from his, and their bodies pressed tightly together. Liam smiled at first as if nothing happened. No accident, no memory loss, everything was back to normal like it should have been. It was as if he was dreaming, feeling Niall against him as they curled up in each other’s embraces all day, not missing a single step. But reality kicked in again. Liam’s eyes blinked rapidly as he tried to figure out how they ended up like this and his heart rate picked up. What if he had tried something on Niall? What if he had made a huge mistake last night and didn’t realize it? What if Niall woke up and was completely terrified of how they were so close together? He tried to pull away as much as he could with the little bit of space there was, but it was no use. They were touching until Niall or Liam got up, and Liam couldn’t do anything about it.

“I can feel you worrying, Liam…” Niall mumbled, shifting on the couch to get more comfortable. Liam froze when he heard Niall speak and his eyebrow’s furrowed. Niall’s eyes were still closed as he spoke. Liam waited in anticipation to see those bright blue eyes again, since they hadn’t been so bright yesterday. “I liked you better when you were sleeping,” Niall complained as his eyes flicked open. They just stared at each other for a few minutes and Liam felt his stomach doing flips as they did. Staring at Niall has become such a regular occurrence now since he couldn’t actually touch or be too close to Niall without feeling like he was going to wreck their relationship. “Morning,” he said, smiling brightly. He could have sworn with that smile on his face, Niall was going to lean in and kiss him right then and there. But, it never happened. It wouldn’t happen either, since they were still in the friend zone in Niall’s mind. “What are you so worried about?” Niall asked when he gently elbowed Liam, shaking his head a bit as Liam jumped at the touch. That was when Niall sat up, pulling their warm bodies apart. “Jeez, it’s cold in here,” he said, running his hands down his sleeved arms. He winced a bit when his hand ran over the bandage, but he didn’t look at it.

Liam sat up too, watching Niall carefully. “I can turn the heat up if you want. It kicks off at night, so it will be chilly for a little while…” Liam said with his eyes still on the back of Niall’s head. Niall chuckled and shook his head, getting off the couch.

“Again, you worry too much. I’m fine,” Niall said, turning to look at Liam with a smile on his face.

“You weren’t fine yesterday…” Liam said, looking away and down. When he said what he did, he felt bad, but it was true. Niall wasn’t okay yesterday, and he felt so bad for not being there for him. “Sorry. I shouldn’t have said–”

“Don’t apologize. It’s true. I wasn’t okay yesterday, but I’m okay today.” Niall stared straight into Liam’s eyes, almost piercing his soul. “Even just being here with you right now is making me feel better. I know now that doing what I did was not the right answer, and that self-harming will never be that answer. I just have to fight through it…” Niall said, looking down with a sigh. “I meant what I said yesterday. It won’t happen again. I promise.”

Liam smiled, feeling almost triumphant in what Niall had said. He wasn’t going to hurt himself again, and knowing that made Liam so happy. Inside, though, he wondered what else Niall could have been hiding from him? If Niall didn’t trust Liam enough to tell him this before, maybe there were other things happening that Liam didn’t know about?

Niall sat down on the coffee table, rubbing his eyes. “I got called by my… boss, I think. He said last night I needed to come in today. He told me he didn’t care if I didn’t remember anything or anyone, so I guess it’s still a good sign that I have a job?” Niall said, shrugging and laughing a bit. “I dunno. Do you think it’s a good idea for me to go in?”

The brunette nodded, standing up. “Yeah, it is. I mean, you can meet some of the people that you don’t know yet that already love you. Before the accident, you loved your job. The sound studio was your second home, Ni. I’ve got to get ready to go to work too, and I’ll be on my phone all day if you need me, like always.” Liam was trying to get ready so he didn’t try to attack Niall with love like he wanted to. The male walked towards the kitchen and looked around at the mess. He started to pick up things, just piling containers inside containers to take care of them.

The male froze. He felt a hand slide on his arm, forcing him to set one of the containers back down on the counter. He couldn’t look up, he just stared at the counter in front of him with his eyes wide. Another hand touched Liam’s face, and Liam looked over quickly to Niall. Before he knew what was happening, Niall has pressed their lips together, and it was almost an instantaneous reaction when the tears began to prick in his eyes. He had missed those lips so much, but he couldn’t move his own even if his life depended on it. Was this supposed to be happening? Was Liam supposed to be enjoying this? He didn’t know what was going on. The lips pulled away, and Liam’s eye’s met Niall’s, desperately seeking answers from him. “I-I hope that was okay. I just… I needed to see how it would feel…” Niall said, letting his hands fall away from Liam. “It still feels funny… the whole thing, you know? I’m sorry, Liam… I’m really trying, though,” he said.

Niall waited for a little bit to hear Liam speak, but Liam couldn’t think of anything to say. He just let Niall walk away, and he started to shake. With balled up fists, he slid down the side of the cabinet, sitting on the floor of the kitchen. Why did this have to be so difficult?


	5. Chapter 5

The next few days had passed, each of the boys trying so hard to move on in their lives, or at the very least, get things back to where they were before Niall had kissed Liam. Liam woke up, rubbing the sleep from his tired eyes as he sat up. He still had to work, no matter how much he didn’t want to. There were bills to pay, and there were people that depended on him at work to get his job done. The brunette got out of bed, stretching his long body out before grabbing his towel and heading to the bathroom.

Liam emerged from the bathroom a half hour later, feeling much better after showering and getting ready for the day. He changed quickly to warm up his cool body and headed out to the kitchen to start making coffee and breakfast. He had made it a habit to cook breakfast for Niall in the morning now, even if he didn’t do it before. He just wanted to make sure Niall was okay, that was all.

About ten minutes had passed when Liam had already started breakfast, and Niall came out in a rush from his room. “Morning,” he said in an obviously hurried breath. Liam turned to look at him, smiling like always. “Hey, do you know where I put my shoes?”

Liam, with the spatula in his hand, motioned towards the door with the utensil, turning back towards the eggs and bacon. “You took them off over there last night when we came back in because your feet hurt. How do your feet feel, anyway?” Liam asked as he turned his head away from the food to glance at the blonde-haired boy.

Niall rolled his eyes from what Liam could see, and shook his head. “Yeah, they’re fine. Jeez, worrying too much, are we?” Niall laughed a bit, heading towards the door to grab his shoes. The food had just finished, and Liam reached up into the cabinet to grab two plates, serving the food onto them before taking them to the table.

“Breakfast is ready,” Liam said as he grabbed forks and coffee cups for the two of them.

Niall came back out with a guilty look on his face, and Liam couldn’t help but give him a confused look. “Liam… I don’t have time to eat breakfast. I’ll have to grab a banana or something. I’m going to be late enough as it is…” Liam could see how worried Niall had looked about the situation, and he shook his head instantly. “I mean, it looks great –”

“It’s fine, really. Let me grab my jacket and I can drive you to work.” Liam set everything he had in his hands down, walking swiftly towards the door to grab his jacket. Before he could, though, Niall grabbed his arm.

“Li, I can drive myself to work. The doctor gave me clearance yesterday, remember? You enjoy breakfast, and I’ll see you later, okay?”

Liam’s eyes widened. Niall wanted to drive himself to work? What if something happened? What if his car stalled and he was late? What if – God forbid – Niall got into another accident? He couldn’t let that happen. He refused to let that happen. “No, no, it’s alright. I want to drive you. It’s fine.” Liam pulled his arm free from Niall, heading over to the coat rack.

Obviously Niall was hot on his trail, because the moment Liam pulled his coat off of the hook Niall pulled it out of his hand. “Liam, please. I want to drive myself to work. I appreciate that you want to take me, but I need to start doing some of these things on my own, okay? Enjoy breakfast. For me?” Of course Niall would pull out the ‘for me’ card. Liam hated when he did that, because he couldn’t say no when he did.

Sighing, Liam took his coat back and put it back on the hook. “Fine. But if anything goes wrong at all, you have to call me. And if you forget something, call me, and I can get it for you, alright?”

Niall couldn’t help it, but he started to laugh. It was infectious like always and Liam joined him, although he wasn’t sure why he was laughing. “What’s so funny?” he asked, trying to stop laughing.

“Liam… You’re acting like my mum…” Niall continued to laugh, but Liam stopped. For the second time that morning, Liam wore an expression of confusion as he stared at Niall. How was he acting like his mum? “I have a car. So if I forget something, I can come back to get it. If something goes wrong, I’ll text you or something, but I doubt anything will go wrong. Don’t worry about it, okay?” Niall said, rubbing Liam’s shoulder before grabbing his own coat off of the coat rack.

The brunette crossed his arms over his chest, huffing slightly. “I am not acting like your mum. I just worry about you, you know? I don’t want anything to happen…” he said, trailing off a bit. Liam was still having nightmares about the whole accident, and he didn’t want any of the things happening in the dreams to happen in real life.

“Awe, Liam… Nothing’s going to happen, I promise,” Niall said. Niall wrapped his arms around Liam in a hug, and Liam sighed, wrapping his arms around Niall protectively. He just didn’t want to let go. “Thanks for worrying about me, though. It means a lot. Just try to worry less, okay?”

Liam nodded, although there was almost no chance that he could worry any less. If anything, he was just going to worry more. “I’ll try, alright? I’m not promising anything, though.” Niall nodded in understanding before pulling away from the hug. “Have a good day,” Liam said, putting on a half-hearted smile.

Niall beamed back as he grabbed his keys. “I will. Thanks.” With that, Niall was headed out the door to his car. Liam nearly pressed his face against the window as he watched him get into the car. He pulled on his seatbelt, started the car, adjusted the radio station – like always – and backed out of the driveway. Niall looked up and smiled, waving to Liam inside the house before driving away, and Liam waved back, trying to smile as he watched Niall leave.

__________________________________________

A few hours had passed and Liam was sitting at his desk at work, staring at his computer screen absentmindedly. It was about nine thirty, and Liam hadn’t done anything productive yet that morning. He was too focused on Niall that morning, worried that something had gone wrong. He had sent Niall a couple messages that morning asking to make sure the lad had gotten to work safely, but he was yet to get a response from him. He picked up his phone again, quickly typing another message. ‘Heeeyyy… did you get to work alrigggght? Just making sure thats all. :)’

He watched the phone, hoping Niall would text him back. Five minutes had passed, then ten, then twenty, and he still hadn’t unglued his eyes from the phone. His fingers tapped nervously on the desk when suddenly, he heard someone clear their throat. Liam jumped at the sound, dropping his phone in the process. “Oh. Morning, sir,” Liam said, standing up. “Can I… uh, can I help you?”

The man came into his office, looking less than satisfied. “I was just wondering when you were going to get on settling those orders,” he said, crossing his arms tightly over his chest. “You realize they’ve been due for a day now, right?”

Liam instantly felt the guilt settle over him. The last few days, he knew he had been dropping the ball on multiple occasions, but his concentration on Niall hadn’t been helping that in any way. “Yes sir. I am aware that they have been due. I will get on them right away and they will be done within the next two hours. I apologize for my lack of concentration and professionalism, and that will change right now,” Liam said, trying to get himself back into place. It was time to start focusing on work again. He knew it had to happen, or he would probably be fired.

“Be sure of it. I know your life is at a tough spot right now, but we can’t keep affording having you slack off. I’ll let it slide this time, Liam, because you’ve never slipped like this before, but please, stay on top of things from now on.”

Liam’s boss left the room before he could say anything, and Liam slinked back into his chair, picking the phone up off the ground and setting it on his desk before opening the file on his desk to start the orders. If he could just focus for two hours, he would be off the hook for the day, and Liam could go back to focusing on Niall like he really wanted to, regardless of how bad of an idea it had been. He started right in and was making great progress, until an hour had passed and his phone buzzed. He glanced down and saw the text from Niall, picking it up instantly. ‘I got to work just fine. I was asked to start right away on something, and we were recording, so I couldn’t call or text you because it could interfere with the systems. I’m fine though. Stop worrying so much. (;’ Liam smiled and nodded, setting his phone back down so he could focus on his work for the next hour.

Liam finished the orders and even started in on some of the files he had to go through. At that point, his mind started to wander to Niall again. His stomach grumbled, and that was when he realized he never packed a lunch for the day. Groaning, he picked up his phone and sent another text to Niall. ‘Want to grab lunch? I forgot to pack one…’ He twirled in his chair as he waited for a response, surprised to get one right away. ‘I’m already eating, Li. ): Sorry! I’ll see you at home!’

Groaning again, Liam stood up and grabbed his jacket to head for the door. It was just him today. Usually, before the accident, even when Niall had been eating or had already eaten, he would agree to go out with Liam, unless he was really busy in the studio. It was just another one of those things that hit too close to home and caused Liam to cringe just a bit. ‘Are you sure? I could pick you up something and we can eat in the studio,’ Liam sent back as he walked towards his car. This was just too much to handle right now, and he really wanted to see Niall again before they went home. His protective side was overanalyzing everything, and he could feel himself get a little panicky about it. Taking a deep breath, Liam sat in his car and waited for a moment. Niall had responded quickly again, and Liam read the message. ‘It’s alright. I’ve got enough here, and I’m busy anyway. Go enjoy your lunch. You’re worrying too much, I can feel it.’

Pinching the bridge of his nose, Liam sighed and put the phone down so he could drive to get lunch. He couldn’t help but feel just a little unappreciated or unwanted by Niall, but what could he really do about it? Niall wasn’t used to spending all his time with Liam, and Liam would just have to accept the new reality of their relationship: it just sucked.

The rest of the day at work went too slowly for Liam as he moped around his office, focusing on cases while thinking about Niall. At least he had been trying to work rather than sitting around, but it still wasn’t enough. When it hit time for him to leave, he went instantly. Before the accident, Liam liked to stay after, especially if he was finishing up something. He used to love his job, even the little trivial things, and he liked to make an impression on the people he worked for and with. But he was losing his interest, and slowly losing his job. He made his way quickly back home, pulling into the driveway only to see that Niall hadn’t been home yet. Niall was usually home before him, even on the days he didn’t stick around. He stepped into the house, grabbing his phone again to see if Niall had text him. He hadn’t, and Liam’s mind started playing through more scenarios. What if he had gotten into another accident? What if he had been stuck on the road somewhere?

There was an urge to call Niall that came over him, and he almost did when his eyes caught onto a piece of paper taped to the refrigerator. He stepped over and smiled to see Niall’s handwriting on it, and it was signed by Niall.

Liam,

Went out to get food. There’s nothing in the house. I’m at the grocery store in town. Don’t worry, I’ll be back soon. (: If you want anything specific, text me, okay? Stop worrying, because I know you are right now. You’ll be okay, and I’m just fine.

-Niall <3 

Leaning against the edge of the counter, Liam took a deep breath. Niall could have waited and he could have gone out to get food, or he could have at least waited and they could have gone together! This frustrated Liam a bit because he didn’t know what was going on with Niall or if everything was alright. What happened if something really did happen? Liam wouldn’t be there to help right away and something worse than memory loss could happen.

For about a half hour, Liam paced around the house, trying to calm himself down. The store was only five minutes away… Liam could have drove there and made sure everything was alright, but even he thought that doing something like that was going a little overboard. He picked up his phone and pressed call, the number already dialed being Niall’s. It rang. And rang. And it rang some more. But Niall never answered. He hung up before he could leave a message, and he threw himself down on the couch in the living room. “I’m sure he’s fine…” he mumbled, trying to reassure himself that Niall was in fact okay this time around.

Five minutes later, Liam heard a car door open and close, and he jumped up instantly from the couch. He was home! That was a good thing. That meant that everything was alright! He smiled to see Niall walk through the door, carrying two large paper bags of groceries into the house. “Hey, grab this?” Niall said in a strained voice. Liam was quick to take one of the bags, heading over to the counter. “Thanks.” His voice sounded very relieved afterwards as the bag was pulled from his arm. “I wasn’t sure what to get, so I just bought a whole bunch of stuff.”

Liam nodded as he started to pull things out of the bag. “Is this everything, or is there more out in the car?” Liam asked as he grabbed the bread out of the bag and set it down on the counter.

“There’s two more bags out there. I’ll go get them – ”

“No, I’ve got them!” Liam said quickly, hurrying towards the door. Niall rolled his eyes and shook his head, but this time there wasn’t a smile on his face. Li made it out to the car and grabbed the two other bags, shutting the door and heading back into the house. “Wow, you really did go to town on these groceries,” Liam said with a light laugh as he approached the counter to set the other two large bags down. Niall had already started to pull things out, putting things in the fridge and in the food cabinet. “Tuna? I thought you didn’t like tuna,” Liam said with a frown.

Niall shrugged a bit, taking care of a half-gallon of milk. “You like tuna though, so I got it for you,” he said. “And I don’t dislike it, it’s just not my favorite. I love almost all foods.”

About five more minutes passed and the two had taken care of all the groceries and Liam had decided to cook up the sausage patties to make sausage sandwiches for them. “I’ll need a pepper and onion,” he said, heading to the fridge. Niall had jumped up on the counter as Liam worked, but he slid down as Liam went to the fridge.

As soon as Liam pulled them out of the fridge and turned around, Niall had pulled the two things out of his hand. “I’ll chop them,” he said, turning towards the counter to grab a knife. Liam’s eyes widened, and he shook his head, pulling the pepper and onion away from Niall. He could cut himself, or slice off a finger. Liam wouldn’t have that happen.

“No, really, it’s fine. I’ve got them.” Liam grabbed his own knife and the cutting board, setting them down on it. He looked over to Niall and he had a look of irritation on his face. “What?”

“Li, I’m sick of this!” Niall said out of complete frustration.

“Sick of what?” Liam asked carefully.

Niall threw his hands into the air. “You’re babying me! I can’t do anything without you watching me, or without you worrying! Liam, I’m fine, nothing is going to happen!”

Liam set down the knife and watched Niall again. “I’m just worried about you! I don’t want anything else to happen to you!”

“What else could possibly happen to me that hasn’t already? I don’t remember anything, I nearly lost my arm… Liam, seriously, this has to stop. I’m losing my mind over this!”

“I don’t want you to lose more of your memory!” Liam shouted back, trying desperately to make Niall understand.

Niall looked up at Liam and his brow furrowed. “What do you mean?”

Liam sighed, crossing his arms. This was the real reason he didn’t want Niall to go anywhere by himself, because he had a fear of Niall losing even more of his memory. “If you lose more of your memory, you’re not going to remember me… I don’t think I can deal with that…” Liam said softly, feeling himself break as he admitted this to Niall.

Those words caught Niall off-guard. He hadn’t been expecting Liam to say something like that, and he suddenly felt bad for what he had caused Liam to go through. “Li…”

“No, save it. It’s fine.” Liam was suddenly frustrated himself and no longer wanted to listen to Niall. He couldn’t deal with it right now, and he knew that if he did listen to Niall, he would probably start to break down. He picked up the pepper and started to chop it, pulling the center with all of the seeds out of it.

Niall sighed, going closer to Liam. He was still very irritated about all this, and now Liam didn’t want to talk. “I can’t keep going through this. I need my own space sometimes, Liam. I’m not used to whatever lifestyle we had before. You’ve got to let me breathe sometimes.”

“Well what if I let you ‘breathe’ and you decide that you really don’t want to be in a relationship with me? What then? I guess it doesn’t matter, because you obviously don’t want to be in a relationship anyway.” Liam’s words were harsh and cold, something he never though he was capable of when it came to Niall.

The blonde-haired boy stopped and his brow furrowed. “Do you know how hard this is on me? I am trying so hard to make this work, Liam, and you aren’t giving me the things I need to make it work! This is unbelievable!” Niall turned around and threw his hands back up in the air, walking away.

Liam set the knife down again and followed Niall out of the kitchen and into the living room. “Hard on you? I’m the one that lost everything I ever had! My entire relationship with you disappeared just because you had to push me out of the way!”

“Jesus! You know what, maybe I don’t want a relationship with you anymore! I don’t know why I would have wanted one in the first place!”

He froze. Very slowly, Niall turned to look at Liam, who had also froze where he stood. He didn’t mean to say what he did. He wished he could have taken it back, but it was too late. “Liam…” Niall said carefully. But Liam couldn’t hear him. “I didn’t mean –”

“Yes you did.” Liam was breaking, and after he spoke, Liam started to shake. He stood there for a few moments, thinking about what Niall had said and putting all the pieces together. Did he really believe Niall? No, not really. But it didn’t change the fact that he had said it, and that it hurt Liam so badly to hear what he had said. Shaking his head and pinching his eyes closed, he was quick to make his way up the stairs. He locked himself up in his room, and he couldn’t even make it to the bed before he was wrapped up in a ball, feeling the tears fall from his eyes. This was it for him. Niall didn’t want him any more.


	6. Chapter 6

About ten minutes had passed and Liam had managed to pull himself up to his bed, curled up in a tight little ball as if it would keep himself from falling apart. He hadn’t felt like moving, but he knew that he needed to at least get off the floor if he didn’t want to wake up with back pain. His eyes glistened with tears, but he did his best to keep them pressed inside. Liam was supposed to be strong through all of this, wasn’t he? Niall’s mum was counting on him to be there for Niall, and how was Liam being supportive right now? He knew he wasn’t, and that just made Liam feel worse about the whole situation.

Groaning, Liam fell back onto the bed as he pressed the heel of his hand to his eyes. Niall meant more than life itself to Liam, and Liam would have done anything for him because Liam knew he would love the boy to his grave. But Niall didn’t love him back, or at least, he didn’t love him back right now. Liam had seen the progress over the last week or so, but even that was so limited and it felt like things were never going to get better. Could Liam really go through another four years of this before he broke in half? He was already cracking as it was.  
Probably an hour had passed of Liam just sitting in his bed, thinking about how he was going to get through Niall’s memory loss when suddenly he heard a light tapping on the door, breaking him away from his train of thought. He blinked a few times as he tried to process the sound, but then realized it was Niall knocking at the door, since no one else could have possibly been in the house at this point. He could see the shadow cast by Niall’s feet, and he sighed. Was it really necessary for them to talk right now? “Li, can I please come in?” he heard Niall say. Liam didn’t say anything, and he could see Niall’s feet shift under the door. Niall didn’t leave, though, which did nothing to aid to Liam’s nerves and emotions. “I’m going to take your silence as a yes. So if you don’t want me to come in, say something.” Usually, Niall’s antics like this made Liam smile and laugh, but right now he couldn’t even pretend to smile.

Niall slowly pushed the door open into the room, and Liam’s eyes traveled to what Niall had in his hands. The male was carrying a tray – one that Liam didn’t realize they had – with two mugs and an assortment of sweets that Niall had just bought earlier that day. “Tonight is definitely not a sausage sandwich night,” Niall said as he brought the tray over to the bed. He was careful to sit down, and he set the tray down between the two of them. “This is a peace offering… I really didn’t mean what I said earlier, and I’m sorry for yelling at you. You don’t deserve to be going through this and I’m not making it any easier on you by treating you this way.” Niall lifted up a mug to Liam, and carefully, Liam took it from Niall to see the hot tea in the mug. “Two sugars, right?” Niall asked, and Liam’s eyes widened. Niall knew how he liked his tea? About to question it, Niall caught on and said “You told me sometime before the accident, and I just couldn’t forget.”

There was actual surprise on Liam’s face. Niall had taken interest in a like or preference of his? It didn’t matter how tiny the detail of Liam’s life was, when Niall had said he remembered it, hope had found its way back into Liam. Maybe Niall was making more progress than he tried to believe. “So, will you forgive me?” Niall asked, taking an obviously hesitant glance to Liam’s eyes.

Although his eyes were red and his face was the same color, he smiled to Niall, nodding. “I couldn’t ever be angry with you for too long. An hour was long enough,” he said with a laugh. The thing was, Liam wasn’t lying either. The longest he had managed to stay mad at Niall was for half a day, and it ended with Liam apologizing for being mad at Niall for ripping his batman shirt. “I’ll take that tea now.” Liam let out another shaky laugh as Niall handed him the steaming substance. “Sorry for storming off like that.”

Niall shook his head as he picked up his own hot tea. “I didn’t expect you to be perfect through all of this. You’re putting up with enough from me, anyway.” Niall shrugged before he reached down to grab what looked to be a bar of chocolate. He broke it in half and handed some of it to Liam, who gratefully took it. “What do you say we sit here and watch a movie? Toy Story?” Niall asked as he stood up.

“Yeah, it’s probably downstairs in the DVD player. We can watch it down there if you’d like,” Liam said, moving to get up. But Niall was quicker to his feet like always, shaking his head as Liam sat back down.

“Nope, I want to watch it in here. We can watch it on my laptop right here. I’ll be right back,” Niall said quickly as he headed out the room. Liam smiled after him, glad that the two of them had cleared the air between them.

But a few seconds later, Liam started to think again. How had Niall known about Toy Story? Liam knew specifically the day he had told Niall about his love for the movie and the Toy Story characters. It was a year after they met, on a night that Liam had broken up with his girlfriend when he found out she was cheating on him…

_______________ Flash Back _______________

Liam stared blankly at his phone, just waiting desperately for a response. He had just told Niall about his break up with Kylie, hoping that just maybe his best friend could give him some words of advice, or maybe just comfort him to tell him everything would be alright. Kylie meant so much to him, and Niall knew it, but at this point, he felt like Niall just didn’t care anymore. More than a half hour had passed, and Liam decided that finally, Niall really just didn’t want to talk to Liam about this. It was about eight-thirty at night, and Liam decided that although he usually stayed up until at least ten, if not later, he would just go to bed. He wasn’t a drinker, and he really didn’t feel like calling up Zayn or Louis. They would just tell him that Kylie was a bitch anyway, since the never liked her to begin with.

Just as Liam was standing up to make his way to his bedroom, there was a knock at the front door. Maybe that was Kylie? She had already picked up all her things though, so Liam highly doubted it. He made his way to the door, and he pulled it open, completely startled to see a head of blonde hair and two blue eyes staring at him. “Niall… I wasn’t expecting to… Why are you here?” Liam was shocked to see Niall there in all honesty. Why had he been there?

Niall didn’t say a word as he pushed passed Liam, dragging two rather large duffle bags into his house. It looked as if Niall was moving in, or something of that nature. There was a sleeping bag hooked onto one of the bags, and a pillow hanging on the other one. “I got here as fast as I could. I mean, me boss wasn’t happy that I left so fast, but she’ll be fine. She understands,” Niall said as he dropped the two bags on the ground. He turned around to face Liam as his brow furrowed at Liam’s expression. The door was still open, and Niall reached around Liam to push it close, since his friend was obviously in too much shock do anything about it. “I stopped by the house to pick up this stuff, since I didn’t have it in me car. I packed them up quickly, stopped at the store – which reminds me, all the food is out there still – and then drove here as quickly as I could without getting stopped. I would have been here sooner if I could have. We’re gonna have a guy’s night, or weekend… or however long you need me to stay.”

At that point, Liam really had been speechless. He was just staring like a deer in headlights. Niall understood Liam better than any of his other friends, so why did he think a guy’s night was a good idea? He seriously couldn’t comprehend any of this. But, when he stopped to think about it, no one else would have thought to do this. They would have said ‘oh, I’m sorry mate, let’s go get drunk tonight.’ Niall actually put real thought into this, and knew that Liam wasn’t one to go get drunk and numb the pain like that. “So I’m gonna go set up your living room. You can go change into something more… comfortable. Get naked, I don’t care.” Niall smirked a bit, clearly trying to hold back a laugh.

Liam’s eyes went wide once again as he stared at Niall. Just as he was about to question him, Niall shook his head and cut him off. “Don’t question me, just go change. I know what I’m doing, trust me. Now go!” Niall exclaimed with a smile, pointing Liam down the hall. “Take your time, too,” he called out after Liam, who was still largely confused. He didn’t know what Niall had to set up, but something told Liam that Niall had something more planned than just alcohol and junk food for the night. Liam finally made it to his room, shutting the door behind him. He took his time to find his favorite pair of sweats hidden in the back of his closet. Then, in his dresser, he pulled out his favorite long-sleeved shirt and pulled it over his head, liking the fabric against his skin. He went to the mirror hanging on the wall and ruffled his hair to loosen up the gel in his hair so it wouldn’t aggravate him later, and after grabbing his sweatshirt, he decided to finally head out to the living room.

As he emerged from the hall and turned to go to the living room, his jaw dropped at the catastrophe his eyes encountered. “Niall James Horan, what did you do to my living room?!” The other male wasn’t in sight, but he knew it was all his doing. He must have been responsible for the blankets piled up on the floor, and the ones creating a tent over nearly his entire living room. They were being held up by what looked like music stands, a chair from his dining room, and his couch. When he finally realized what it was, he was no longer angry at Niall. Actually, he was excited. Niall had created a blanket fort in his living room, and Liam felt like a little kid again.

“Are you coming in, or am I going to be an eight year old by meself?” He asked, his laugh soon to follow. Liam walked around the fort until he saw what he figured to be the opening of the fort, and Liam crawled through until he was inside, seeing Niall sitting in the middle of the blanket-covered ground, opening up bags of chips, packages of cookies, and other things. “I couldn’t fit more pillows into the bags, so I just grabbed the extra two from your closet, the ones on your couch… and the couch cushions.”

A chuckle came out of Liam’s mouth and he crawled closer to Niall. He couldn’t believe how truly amazing Niall was being right now. He had to be the most supportive friend he ever had. Everything started to boil up in Liam, and he couldn’t help but wrap his arms around Niall tightly, hugging him for dear life out of appreciation for him. He was just in so much disbelief that Niall would actually go through all of this. “Shh… It’s okay, Li. You’re alright…” Niall said softly into Liam’s hair. Liam didn’t even realize he had started to cry until Niall tightened his arms around him and started to rock back and forth a little bit. He hummed softly, keeping Liam in his arms.

Liam let it all out, unable to hold it in any longer. The break up sucked. Kylie had cheated on him – she had admitted it – and now he was alone. She lied to him, she betrayed him. Everything just felt so wrong now. The tears cascaded down his cheeks, and he pressed his eyes tightly together as his face pressed harder into Niall’s shoulder. He was glad Niall had been holding him tightly, and Liam’s salty tears started to stain the blonde’s shirt. Neither of them could have told you how long they spent like that, but in that time, one of Niall’s hands had taken to massaging Liam’s head, his fingers running slowly through his hair, tangled in his curly locks. “Your shirt is wet…” Liam mumbled against Niall’s shoulder. He didn’t move though, since he found so much comfort in his body.

“Hmm… I wonder why…” Niall said with a tad bit of sarcasm, but softly enough not to offend or upset Liam more than he already had been. Liam couldn’t help but giggle – yes, giggle – at Niall’s words, finding his humor soothing. “Don’t worry about it. I packed two weeks’ worth of clothing anyway. Most of it is still in the car.”

With that, after a few more moments, Liam pilled away, almost a little regretfully, but stayed within a relatively close distance to him. “I hope you don’t mind, but I checked your DVD player while you were changing, which by the way, you were really slow at doing, because I was going to set up a movie to watch, but I couldn’t figure out your TV, so I decided to just get my laptop out and we could do it this way. Anyway, I saw that Toy Story was in the DVD player, and I wondered if you wouldn’t mind watching it again, since I haven’t seen it in ages.”

Liam’s grin multiplied as he took in Niall’s suggestion. Very quickly, he said “of course we can watch it. I mean, it is my favorite after all.”

Niall’s eyebrow raised at Liam’s confession, obviously in disbelief about what he had just heard Liam say. “Your favorite movie is Toy Story… Why don’t I believe it?” The air was suddenly still, and the silence was almost uncomfortable as Liam’s eyes widened a bit. A grin spread on Niall’s face as he watched Liam’s expression change from surprise to total embarrassment. “Oh my God… it really is your favorite movie. Well, shit…” Niall started to chuckle, and he reached down to adjust the laptop screen. “I’m not going to judge you, don’t worry. C’mon, the movie isn’t going to watch itself.” Niall scooted over and Liam smiled as he crawled in front of the laptop, lying down in front of it so his face was nearly pressed to the screen, which caused Niall to chuckle.

Niall pressed start on the movie, and Liam moved over so Niall could sit down next to him and see the screen. After about two minutes, Niall had adjusted himself so he was laying down right next to Liam, their arms brushing together and their legs touching. Liam’s legs had bent and went up as he watched the movie, and Niall’s did the same. They didn’t say anything as Niall’s leg bumped into Liam’s, a crisscrossing action visible as their legs crossed over one another’s. They were just so comfortable around each other that they could lay like this all night long, not caring how the other was sitting. Half way through the movie even, Niall’s hand had brushed on Liam’s, and just out of comfort, the two of them let their fingers mesh together, even if it wasn’t officially hand holding. Liam hadn’t felt this relaxed all day long, so just being so close to Niall meant so much to him. Even as Niall’s head rested on Liam’s shoulder, or Liam pulled Niall’s hand closer to them, it didn’t distract them from the movie because they were just that comfortable around each other now.

“Li, you’re shivering,” Niall said, which completely broke Liam’s concentration from the movie. Liam’s flat had always been cold at night, just because the heat kicked off around nine to conserve energy and save money. It was December, so of course it would be cold in the house by now. “Hang on,” he said as he sat up and reached over Liam. Niall had pulled a blanket closer to them, and draped it over Liam’s body. Niall snuggled underneath the blanket too, pressing himself closer to Liam to conserve the body heat. “Better?”

“Much…” Liam said with a smile. He turned his attention back to the movie, but for some reason, he really didn’t feel like watching Toy Story. His mind was on Niall, and how close the boy had been to him right then and there. Niall had gone out of the way for him, and to be completely honest, his mind had been completely pulled away from Kylie and how much angst he was feeling towards her. He was amazed that someone could do something so simple and yet create such a big impact.

Niall felt the change in atmosphere between them and he looked away from the movie. “You’re not watching anymore, are you?” His eyes had trailed to Liam’s eyes and he smiled to him. “It’s okay if you’re not.”

“I just can’t believe you would go through all of this for me. We’ve only known each other for a year now… Why?” he asked as he reached out and shut the laptop screen. The fort went dark, most of the light being hidden by the thick, opaque blankets covering their heads.

Niall shrugged and looked to Liam. “It doesn’t matter to me that we haven’t known each other for very long. You’re my best friend, Liam. I do everything with you, and I would hate to think that you would just be sitting here alone at a time like this. No one deserves to go through something like this, especially you. You’re the most caring person I know, Li, and if someone can’t return you the favor sometimes…” Niall trailed off, looking down and away from Liam because he was starting to feel emotions build up inside of him too. He didn’t want to tear up in front of Liam right now, because the male was unemotionally stable enough right now.

Niall rolled over onto his back and out of the blanket he and Liam had been sharing at the time, looking up to the blankets that made their makeshift ceiling at the time. “Did you want to talk about it? Because we don’t have to, but I’m here to listen.” Liam followed Niall’s action and rolled over onto his back, looking up at the blankets as if they were a sky filled with stars.

Liam pressed closer to Niall, letting their arms brush again. He almost started to question his relationship with Niall, wondering how they could have gotten so close to each other. It didn’t bother Liam that they were that close – he actually loved having a friend that he could be so close to and be himself around – but it was just strange that the two of them had found a way to be more comfortable around each other than Liam had ever been with any of his other friends. He had been more comfortable around Niall than he had been around Kylie. He didn’t have to put up an act around Niall like he did with other people. He could just be Liam. “Well, I mean, I don’t really know what to say about it.”

“Tell me anything. I mean, start with the simple things with like… how it made you feel or something?” Niall looked over to Liam as he pressed his hands onto his stomach. The two of them had eaten bits and pieces of the stuff Niall had brought over, but really, they hadn’t touched half of it. They were just focused on the movie and each other at that point.

Liam sighed. “Well, really, I was just shocked. I mean, she admitted to sleeping with another guy while we were in a relationship, and she and I hadn’t even gotten that far. I wanted to, I think, but I just didn’t know how to go about it, you know?” Liam looked over to Niall who nodded at Liam, taking it all in.

With a bit of hesitation, Niall started again. “You know, I checked her Facebook page, and she had pictures of this other guy up there. By the way, he’s got to be the creepiest dude I have ever seen. She’s got a strange taste in guys I guess…” Niall said, smirking just a bit. Liam’s jaw dropped as he turned to look at Niall, and Niall started to laugh. “Oh, stop. I’m just kidding. Anyone would be lucky to have you, Li. If you don’t know that by now, then you really are crazy.”

Liam smiled, feeling his heart pound a little bit faster. He didn’t know why, but something about the way Niall had said it told Liam that the male had meant it totally. Liam turned onto his side so he could look at Niall again, and he reached out and pulled a pillow closer to him to rest it under his head. “Nope, those are for the ground. You can’t destroy the fort, Liam!” Niall said as he reached out to put the pillow back. The two of them struggled for a bit until Liam gave up, laughing just slightly.

“What do you expect me to use then?” Liam asked.

Niall shrugged. “I dunno. Friends make pretty good pillows in my opinion. I mean, you made a pretty good pillow when Zayn drove us down to the pier,” he said with a half smirk. Liam sighed and snuggled closer to Niall. Then, he put his head on Niall’s shoulder, and Liam relaxed completely into the male. “See, not so bad, huh?” Niall said with a laugh, causing Liam’s head to bounce a bit against Niall’s shoulder and chest. An eye roll followed as Niall wrapped his arm around Liam’s shoulders. Liam couldn’t explain it, but he felt absolutely relieved and relaxed in Niall’s grasp. There was comfort in his arms that he just couldn’t explain.

The two of them didn’t talk for the remainder of the night, and Liam realized after a while that Niall’s breathing had evened out, and the male had fallen asleep. He almost wanted to pull away to give Niall his space, but at the same time, not a single bone in his body wanted to pull away from Niall, feeling the comfort in his embrace. He let one of his arms drape over Niall’s small torso, enjoying the feel of the rise and fall from his stomach. His eyes started to slip into sleep himself, but Niall jumped a bit, waking Liam back up and scaring him just slightly. “Sorry… I thought you’d moved…” Niall said, chuckling just slightly. “If you’re comfortable there, I don’t mind, you know.” Liam realized that Niall had been talking about how the two of them were laying together. Usually, Liam had been the one to hold someone, to keep them warm and safe, but this time it felt nice to be the one being held, the one being kept safe and warm.

“I kind of like it, actually…” Liam mumbled, closing his eyes again. After that, the two of them had fallen asleep, and the rest of the weekend sailed on by…

_______________ Current Time _______________

Niall walked back to the room, holding the Toy Story DVD between his fingers and a laptop under his arm. “You know something? I think I might skip work tomorrow, since you have off. I want to spend time with you,” Niall said as he got onto the bed, careful not to spill his or Liam’s tea on the tray. He looked over to Liam, who had been staring at him without breaking his gaze one bit. “Well, jeez, if you don’t want me to spend time with you just say so, and I will go to work tomorrow.” Niall snickered for a bit as he pulled the laptop out from under his arm and set it down on the bed. There was that silence hanging over their head as Liam continued to stare out of disbelief. “What?” Niall asked when he looked back up to meet Liam’s eyes once again.

Liam was making too much of a deal over Niall remembering that Toy Story was his favorite movie, even to this day. But, it was still very strange and it didn’t add up to Liam. Niall’s memory was only six months into their friendship, completely deleting their romantic relationship and parts of their strong friendship. Liam knew for a fact that Niall had no clue about his affinity with Toy Story until they had known each other for a little over a year. That night had been imprinted in Liam’s mind as the night he truly started to realize his feelings for Niall. “Seriously, Li, why are you staring at me? Do I have something on my face?”

He cleared his throat, trying to find a way to formulate his thoughts into words. “Niall… How… how did you know Toy Story was my favorite?” The utter shock was in his voice as he tried to figure all this out on his own.

It was as if Niall didn’t hear him right, or as if he didn’t understand the question. He looked at Liam like he had two heads, or steam coming out his ears. “Li, you told me the night I came over and built a fucking blanket fort in your living room. I thought I was the one with memory loss,” Niall said with a chuckle. “I couldn’t ever forget that week. I mean, I spent a whole week at your house. How could I ever?”

“That weekend we had known each other for over a year, Ni. We med in October, and that weekend was December of the next year…” Liam was starting to get excited about this – almost too excited. Had Niall’s memory come back yet? Did that mean things could finally go back to normal for the two boys? Liam just wanted to hold Niall tightly ad never let him go, but he had to be sure though.

Niall stare back at Liam with the same expression Liam had on earlier that evening. It was quite frightening, but suddenly, it was like a light bulb had lit up inside his head. “Oh my God… You’re right! Jesus, how did I forget all of that? I mean, wow… What the hell!” Niall had gotten to his feet and ran his hands through his hair. “I remember it! That was the same timespan that I got my braces off finally, and the same time I got a job at the recording studio. Jesus Christ…” Niall started to laugh. “It’s like… it’s all there now! I remember all of that. I don’t know how I could have forgotten.”

Liam stood up as well, feeling the excitement build up even more inside of him. “So… wait. What else do you remember, then?” Liam asked him gently, wondering if maybe Niall had remembered even more about their relationship now. He didn’t want to jump to conclusions, but he did want to find out if there was a chance Liam could actually finally start moving passed the awkward friendship stage with Niall.

“I don’t know… Ask me things, maybe there’s more I do know that I just can’t think of.” Niall sat back down and Liam began to pace. He wanted to think of memories far back enough that might help him. “Okay. We had a New Year’s celebration at Harry’s house. Zayn got really drunk and kissed Louis, which caused a little fight between him and Perrie. Do you remember that?” It was a pretty big deal back then, but now it was so insignificant.

Niall nodded, rolling his eyes. “He was drunker than I was. That’s hard to do,” Niall said with a chuckle. That was a good sign. Niall remembered more than what Liam anticipated him to remember, even if it was just a few weeks after the week Niall stayed at his house. “What now?”

Liam thought for a moment, trying to come up with new ideas. “Okay, on Valentine’s day, I sent you a Nando’s gift card, and you said it was the best gift someone had ever given you on Valentine’s day.”

Liam could tell that Niall had remembered that one, and he started to laugh. “Of course. I mean Nando’s is the best, and for you to send me a gift card for there, I was really excited about it.”

Liam chuckled and decided to six ahead to May when they went to the Zoo. “Okay, so we went to the Zoo in May… and I tried to convince you that we could adopt a turtle. I wanted to name him –”

“Rex, and I said no because I didn’t think he looked enough like a dinosaur to be called Rex.” Niall grinned, obviously happy to have pieces of his memory back. “What else?” Niall asked out of excitement.

Liam grinned too, trying to think of another thing that happened that year. It was so long ago, but Liam was bringing back memories quickly. He needed to help Niall out. “Alright… in July, you signed a record deal with this one band –”

“And flew to Paris because they needed their equipment. You’re not easy to shop for, I might add,” Niall said with a roll of the eyes. Liam chuckled a bit, remembering all the things Niall had brought back from those two weeks in Paris.

This is where Liam started to get a little anxious. In September, Liam had told Niall his feelings about him, and the two of them spent about four days away from each other, because Niall wasn’t sure about what he was feeling towards Liam. After that four days, though, Niall told Liam that he wanted to give a relationship a shot if Liam was up for it, and well, they went on their first date. The two of them didn’t officially mark themselves as being taken until two months later when Liam asked Niall to be his boyfriend, and that was where they started counting months. But if Niall didn’t remember his confession, then that meant they still were in the friend zone. “In… September… I confessed my feelings toward you… and you told me you had to think about it. It took you four days to think about it, and well, we went on our first date three days later.”

Niall stared at Liam again, and Liam felt his heart drop. The look on Niall’s face told him that he hadn’t remembered that, and that they were still not a couple. Liam sighed and took a seat reaching on the bed to pull the tray off and set it on the ground so they didn’t knock anything over. “It’s fine if you don’t, honestly. I’m just glad you have so much of your memory back,” Liam said with a smile, reaching over to rub Niall’s back. Niall looked down and nodded, folding his hands in his lap.

“Can we watch Toy Story now?” Niall asked, looking up as he bit the inside of his lip. Liam nodded, and the two of them crawled to the pillows and pulled the lap top between them, resting on both of their legs. Liam reached out to the wall and flipped the light switch on, then he snuggled under the covers. Niall did the same and the two of them smiled at each other as Niall started the movie. As it started, Liam’s eyes went wide when Niall reached for Liam’s hand, but he said nothing as their fingers tangled up tightly together. There was definitely still hope for the two of them


	7. Chapter 7

The following two weeks passed by very smoothly for Liam and Niall, considering everything that had been happening in their lives. Niall and Liam went to work the following Monday, they spent time together, Niall met up with some of his old friends that were happy to hear from them, and Liam and Niall started to do their weekly coffee run again. At first, Liam wasn’t so sure he could handle going to coffee with Niall again, simply because of what happened the last time, but after the first time back to the coffee shop went well, and Niall assured Liam he wouldn’t run out into the street and get hit by another truck.

It had been Thursday afternoon, and Liam sat at his desk at work, working tiredly and steadily on a case for his boss. Liam had finally gotten to a state of mind where he could stop thinking about Niall constantly and focus on his work. Even though things weren’t where Liam wanted them to be, he was just glad to know that Niall was still a large part of his life. He tapped his pencil steadily against his desk as he thought about what else to write about the case. Because he was so invested in the file in front of him, it wasn’t a surprise that when his phone rang, he nearly jumped out of his seat. Liam glanced over to the ringing device and picked it up, raising a brow when he saw Niall’s face staring back at him. He pressed answer and moved the phone to his ear. “Hey, Nialler. What’s up?” he asked as he turned his attention back to the case. He was trying to multitask now.

Even before Niall spoke, Liam could tell that Niall was under a lot of stress. “Hey, Li. I was sent home to work on some things for this new artist we’re signing here at the studio, and I really wanted to make dinner but I’m just doing so much right now…” he heard Niall start. Liam leaned back in his chair and pulled his attention away from his work. He could get away with a phone call right now because he had finally rebuilt his reputation at work. “I’m really sorry.”

“No, it’s fine Niall. I can pick something up on the way home. Chinese sound good?” Liam asked, twirling around in his chair and leaning back further in the rolling chair. “I’ll pick up some lo mien and some spicy chicken of some sort for you,” Liam suggested.

“Shit…”Niall said through the line, and Liam’s brow furrowed. “Sorry, screwed something up on this song. Uh, yeah. That sounds great, Li. Thanks.”

Liam wasn’t used to seeing Niall like this, but there had been a few occasions where Niall had been stressed out by work. That seemed to die when he started to feel more comfortable with his abilities at his workplace, but it was obvious that Niall wasn’t quite comfortable with again. “No problem. I’ll see you at home around six, alright?” Niall gave some sort of agreement and the phone disconnected.

Liam turned his attention back to the case. He was getting two new kids tomorrow, and he had to interview them and see where they would be placed. It was interesting working as a social worker, and well, Liam loved it, even when things got rough. Abusive parents were what really got to him, but he had to be professional about it. He took more notes and closed the case. Then, he opened the other one and dove right in. He had an hour, and he could usually get the case studies done fairly quickly. This one was no exception. Within an hour, Liam was able to finish taking notes, and he took care of the files. Then, he got up and pulled his jacket on, ready to head out. The male called his order in as he walked down to the car, and Liam was quick to drive to the Chinese restaurant.

He pulled into the lot and got out of the car. As he looked down at his phone, Liam jumped out of his skin when he ran into someone. “Oh! So sorry!” he said as he looked back up. His eyes flicked up and he immediately froze. “Oh… it’s you,”he mumbled, staring at the girl in front of him. It was her. It was the girl that hit Niall with her truck.

The girl looked up to meet Liam’s eyes, and she seemed to instantly recognize Liam as well. “Hey! Sorry about that. I’m usually paying more attention. How’s… How’s Niall doing?” she asked carefully. Liam was at least grateful that she remembered his name. The family never pressed charges against her because of the road conditions and how she had been a competent driver who hadn’t been under the influence of any illegal substances or alcohol.

Liam took a hesitant breath as he tried to figure out what exactly to tell her. He had been fine, but to Liam, things were still really shaky. Niall seemed to be doing great, but for Liam, things really weren’t great anymore. “Well, he’s doing fine. Did his mum tell you what happened?” he asked, wondering if she knew about the memory loss. He wouldn’t explain it if she already about it. He had a hard enough comprehending it himself. Liam still had trust issues with the girl. She did, after all, hit Niall. He blamed himself the most about it, since he was the one in the street to begin with, but it could have been him. It didn’t have to be Niall.

“The memory loss? Yeah… I am so, so sorry about that. I can’t imagine what he’s going through right now. Trying to get back on track must be rough…” It’s rough on more than just him… he thought, then instantly felt guilty because Niall was the one that really had it hard. Every time someone asked him about Niall, they never seemed to register that Liam had been greatly affected by this too. “Has he regained any of his memory? I mean, after being in such an excited emotional state, it could have just been locked up in his brain. I started reading up on it and it’s very possible that he didn’t actually lose it. It could all still be there but just hidden or forced back by something.”

Nodding, Liam knew what she was talking about. It was the likely case for Niall since he had regained a large portion of his memory after all. “He did regain some of his memory. He still doesn’t remember our relationship at all, but it’s better than nothing…” Liam trailed off a bit, looking down.

It looked as if the girl was about to speak, but she was cut off by something when she looked up. “Oh, hey Louis. Sorry, I just ran into someone I met a few weeks ago,” she said, motioning towards Liam. Liam looked up to see Louis standing with them, and a smile came on his lips. He had known Louis for years now, and it was quite the shock to see him there. “This is Liam,” she said, smiling.

Louis rolled his eyes and wrapped his arm around Liam’s shoulder. “Babe, I’ve known Li for years.” Liam responded to the action by wrapping his arm around the males lower back and pulling him closer, nearly making him fall over. “I didn’t realize you and Eleanor knew each other, Liam.”

“Well, sort of… I mean, she was the one that hit Niall…”

As soon as Liam said that, everything tensed up. Louis’ body went stiff, and Eleanor’s eyes went wide. “Wait… you know Niall?” El asked in a stiff, croaking voice. The tears began to well up in her eyes, and it was pretty obvious that this was affecting her in more than one way. “I didn’t realize… Oh God… You hate me now…”

Eleanor had the bag of food in her hand, and she was quick to shove it against Louis and run off. He grabbed onto the bag of Chinese food and watched after her as she ran off to a car. There was a silence between Liam and Louis for a moment, and they finally looked up to each other at the same time. “Lou, you have to tell her that Niall and I aren’t mad at her… How do you know her, anyway?” Liam asked out of curiosity.

Louis smiled. “She got me my job at the modeling agency. She really is a sweet girl. She never mentioned that she hit someone, though. Let alone Niall… She is a sweet girl. Oh! She is throwing an early Christmas party, and she told me to invite a few people. I thought you and Niall, Harry, Zayn, you know, the five of us could hang out or get crazy, you know. It would make her feel better if you came.”

It wasn’t that Liam didn’t want to go, but he had a feeling that Niall wouldn’t want to go. But Liam thought that maybe that would be a good way for Niall to start getting back to normal. Niall had always loved to socialize, and it was possibly a way to help his memory to come back. Liam would do anything for Niall to have his memory back. It was selfish, he knew it, but he really just wanted what was best for Niall. “I’ll see if I can convince Niall, alright?”Liam said with a smile. Lou seemed pretty pleased, and he gave Liam hug.

“Give that hug to Nialler for me, alright?” Louis said, and the male bounded off after Eleanor to tell her things were alright. With a nod, followed by a sigh, Liam turned and headed into the Chinese restaurant after processing everything that had just happened. He couldn’t believe how small of a world it was.

About twenty minutes later, Liam had successfully picked up the food order and was walking through the door. “Niall?” he called out when he didn’t see the male sitting in the kitchen. Liam set the food down on the counter and took off his jacket. The house was warm still, so he didn’t have to worry about staying warm until later. “Are you in the living room?” he called out as he reached his hand into the brown paper bag to pull out the Chinese food.

“Yeah, sorry. Just packed with stuff right now,” Niall called out from the living room. Liam nodded and put the food back in the bag. They could eat the food out in the living room if that was what Niall needed. Taking out the chopsticks that neither of them were great at using and setting the bag on the table, he looked over at Niall who had been spread out on the floor, eyes scanning over papers, and his hand on the computer. Niall looked completely immersed in the work he had his mind set on. Liam was surprised that there had been a walking space between the two rooms to be honest. It looked like a kid’s backpack from middle school threw up with all the papers and binders scattered across the floor.

Liam brought the bag down onto the floor and took a seat, looking forward to eating with Niall finally. He had been hungry since about four that afternoon, and with it nearing six thirty, Liam was ready to jump right in. “Alright, take a food break. Come on, you have to eat,” Liam said as he pulled Niall’s hand away from the laptop. Niall looked up and blinked, and then a sigh overcame him. He sat up straight and quickly reached his hand over to the laptop. He clicked on what looked to be a save button, and then closed the lid on the laptop. Then, he started to push papers into piles and set them aside. Liam smiled as he waited for him, giving Niall as much time as he needed so he could eat. When Niall looked ready, Liam pulled containers out of the bags and set them down. He handed Niall a pair of chopsticks and that got a chuckle out of Niall’s lips. Even just in their friendship, the two of them made up stupid rules. One of them was how any time they ate Chinese food they had to eat with chopsticks. They weren’t allowed to go get a fork and cheat.

“It smells great. I haven’t eaten since breakfast,” Niall admitted, and he was quick to dive into one of the containers with his chopsticks, doing his best not to spill in the process. “So how was work?” Niall asked after swallowing a large mouth full of food. He looked up to Liam as he tried to make honest efforts to listen to the male.

Liam nodded as he picked up his own container, digging his chopsticks in to the food. “It wasn’t bad. We’re getting two new kids tomorrow, so I had to finish the case studies before I left. We have no idea what to expect with them or the family, so it’s going to be interesting tomorrow.”

“Sounds like it,” Niall added as he ate another piece of chicken.

Liam rolled his eyes just a bit as he contemplated how to bring up the party. He decided to just go for it. There was no reason to ease into it. “So, I ran into Louis and Eleanor today,” he started, trying to be casual. Niall looked up with a smile on his face. “Yeah. You know who Eleanor is, right? The lady that…”

Niall nodded. “Yeah, the girl that hit me. We didn’t press charges so it’s alright. She’s a sweet girl,” Niall stated while he chewed his food.

With a deep breath, Liam nodded as well. “Well, anyway, she had no idea that Louis knew you, and apparently they are pretty close friends right now. She’s throwing this Christmas party – a bit early, Lou told me – and she said that he could invite some people, and Louis wants us to come over.” Liam tried to be nonchalant about it, but he could tell it hadn’t exactly done the trick. Niall looked at Liam with weary eyes, then down at his laptop and papers.

“Why do I get the feeling that this party is even sooner than I’m expecting?”

Liam cringed a bit. “It’s tomorrow.”

There was an air of silence between them as they stared at each other, not moving to eat or do anything. Niall did have a ton of stuff to get done it looked like, but Liam was just trying to help a little bit. Maybe one night to clear his mind would help him later on? “I don’t know… look at all this stuff. I don’t know how to get all this stuff done as it is, let alone get it done by Monday.” Of course, this was still coming as a shock for Liam, because he had been so used to him jumping at any chance for a party of sorts. Liam just stared down, feeling just a little rejected. “But, as long as we don’t go for too long…”

Liam’s eyes snapped up to look at Niall, and a smile started to grow, starting with his eyes that widened considerably. “Really? Are you sure?” he started to be sure Niall really wanted to go through with this. He couldn’t force him to go no matter how much he wanted him to.

Again, there was a bit of silence between them. Then, Niall had sighed and nodded. He smiled as well, giving Liam a bit of hope, no matter how false it truly was. After that, the two of the continued to eat Chinese food, and continued to enjoy their evening.

__________________________________________

That next night, Niall and Liam found themselves in front of a rather large home, and there were people dressed for a party occasion and having a great time. “I don’t know, Liam. I really should be working on my stuff for Megan… she’ll get mad if I don’t have it done by Monday. She’s having new boss jitters I think,”Niall said as he started to back up. Liam was surprised to see this side of Niall come out, since he was usually always up for a party scene. But after the accident, so many things changed. It was obvious that because he had misplaced so much of his memory, he didn’t want to disappoint his boss after having a hard time playing catch up at work.

Liam looked over to Niall, and he felt a bit of worry wash over him. Niall needed to loosen up a little bit, and that was exactly what Liam intended to do. Reaching out, Liam put a hand on his arm, and their eyes met. A few inaudible thoughts were sent back and forth, and afterwards Niall took a deep breath. “Alright, we can go in. But not for too long, please?” Niall asked as he took a step forward, and Liam smiled as he reached to link arms with Niall. The blonde male felt more comfortable linking arms than he did holding hands in public, so Liam was willing to do that with him.

The two of them walked inside the house, taking in the decorations and the masses of people. Niall instantly pressed closer to Liam, and the brunette instantly knew why. He was claustrophobic, and although he had grown out of it quite a bit before the accident, that mindset was obviously still there now that he had still misplaced a good two years of his life. “You’re alright. I’m here,” Liam said as he tightened their arms. Louis emerged from a crowd of people moments later, and waved ecstatically towards the two males. “Hey, Lou!” Liam called out.

Right behind him had been Eleanor, smiling brightly in their direction. “You’re finally here! I thought you’d never show. Let’s get to the living room; it’s less crowded out there.” Louis pulled them forward and Liam and Niall followed willingly. They finally pushed their way through the crowded hall and foyer reaching the living room. Niall and Liam took a seat on the couch, and almost instantly, people started to flock around them. They started with questions, mostly about how Niall was doing, and Liam could easily see how uncomfortable all the people were making him feel. He laughed through it though, and put on a face. But they both powered through, greeting everyone and smiling as they went.

“Hey, Liam, Haz needs your help in the kitchen!” someone called out. Most everyone had disappeared from around Liam and Niall at that point, leaving them alone for a while, and Niall had turned his attention to his phone, probably texting Megan with more information.

With a smile, Niall looked up to Liam. “Go help him, I’ll be here.” It took a minute for Liam to be convinced, but he finally made his way out to the kitchen, leaving Niall to sit on the couch by himself as other people socialized and had a good time. When Niall disappeared from his view, Liam turned his concentration to finding Harry. He wasn’t that hard to find in the kitchen as he was mopping up a mess that someone had obviously created. Liam didn’t even ask; he just started to help him out.

Harry looked up to see Liam cleaning, and he smiled. “Sorry, I just needed help and I knew no one else would give me a hand,” he said as he mopped up the floor. How Harry was recruited to be part of the cleaning crew for Eleanor’s party, Liam would never know, but at least someone was taking responsibility in the house. “How’s Niall doing?” he asked. So many people had asked him that lately, and well, Liam was getting tired of answering. Niall was fine, but Liam was exhausted holding back now. “How are youdoing?” he asked again, obviously casting his other question aside.

It was as if Harry could read his mind, and was Liam straightened up, he closed his eyes and took a deep breath. “I’m exhausted, Harry. I mean, how long can I really keep this up? It just… it sucks. I have to keep stopping myself from doing stupid things that he wouldn’t want me to do. Like the other day, I was about to pull him into my lap while we were sitting on the couch, and I awkwardly turned it into a hug and said I was going to bed, even though it was only eight and I wasn’t tired. Then, this morning, I almost said ‘I love you’, but I know that’s taboo right now in the house. I’m just… ughhh…” Liam said as his head fell backwards out of stress. It was good to finally talk with someone about it for him, but it still changed nothing. As Liam continued to clean, it looked as if Harry was thinking about something.

“Have you tried moving forward? Maybe he’s ready to try things, but because you don’t want to scare him off, you’re being too protective? He’s regained some of his memory, so he probably has those feelings bottled up inside him like he did before you two started dating.” Liam stared in disbelief. Harry had always been the introspective type, but even then, Liam wasn’t expecting that kind of thing out of him. Liam thought about what he had to say as he continued cleaning, and Harry spoke again. “I think he’s ready. Don’t take things too slow, or he won’t want that relationship again.”

The two of them finished cleaning up, and Liam went to leave the kitchen. “Thanks, Harry. I really appreciate it. I think you’re right… hopefully you are,” he said. Harry nodded with a smile, leaving Liam to head back out to the living room. He had to make his move. He couldn’t wait anymore.

Out on the couch, Niall hadn’t moved, except his phone was now pressed to his ear, and his hand was pressed to his other ear to muffle out the sound. He looked stressed out as he spoke, and Liam’s brow furrowed. It was a Friday night and Megan had no right to bother Niall this late. Usually Megan was easy going and didn’t want to cause more problems, but right now, she was causing unnecessary stress on Niall and Liam didn’t like that.

There was a look of defeat on Niall’s face as he spoke, and Liam was done. He reached out and pulled Niall’s phone away from his face, and turned it off. “Liam!” he called out, reaching out to take the phone back. “That was important! It was about the track we’re recording!”

“Well, good, she can call you back tomorrow when you’re not busy.” Liam watched as Niall’s face turned to one of guilt. Without letting him start feeling guilty, Liam held his hand out. “Come on.” Niall looked up, an expression of obvious confusion covering his face. Niall reached up and took his hand, and Liam pulled him forward, keeping their fingers laced. Then, as they weaved through the people, Liam finally found his way to the sliding glass door to take them out to the back porch, and out to the lit back yard.

“What’re we doing out here?” Niall asked as he looked around. Liam was silent as he pulled them out to the middle of the back yard, staring up to the stars that illuminated the dark sky. Niall’s eyes trailed up as well and the two of them just stood in silence for a moment, watching the stars while in each other’s presence. When Liam glanced back down to Niall, he smiled to see Niall’s face completely rid of stress. It was just filled with wonder as he stared up. That was something Liam had always loved about Niall; he had that ability to lose himself in something so simple, but as miraculous as the stars in the sky. Niall’s head suddenly went down as he looked at Liam, and a small smile spread on Niall’s face.

Liam didn’t say anything; he just reached for Niall’s other hand, pulling Niall gently so he was facing Liam completely. “Take my hand, I’ll teach you to dance,” he started to sing softly, and Niall’s smile changed to an expression of confusion as the attitude changed. Liam stopped for a moment as he remembered the words, and he slowly started to shuffle his feet. “I’ll spin you around, won’t let you fall down.” Liam started to pull and push Niall’s hands, swaying them just a bit. Niall’s smile returned slowly, growing with every word and motion. At first his eyebrow raised as he tried to figure out what Liam was up to, but that was short-lived. He caught on and became less resistant to Liam’s movements. Niall still didn’t move his feet, but he started to twist just a little bit. Liam lifted their hands, and started to spin Niall around, and a small laugh was let out of Niall’s mouth as he spun himself underneath their arms. Niall returned his hand to Liam’s, and he started to sway on his own. Liam moved closer to Niall, and he could see the surprise flash on Niall’s face. “Would you let me lead? You can step on my feet,” he sang softly again. Niall’s head tilted, obviously a little hesitant. “Give it a try, it’ll be alright.”

After a bit of hesitancy, Niall stepped forward and stepped on Liam’s feet, his weight on Liam’s toes not too unbearable. When he nearly lost his balance, Niall flailed just a bit before his arms hooked around Liam’s neck tightly, the fright visible in his features. Liam smiled and very gently put his arms on Niall’s lower back to hold him closely, encouraging him to take a deep breath and relax.“The room’s hush, hush, and now’s our moment,” he started again, and Niall smiled again. Liam couldn’t help but notice the blush spread on Niall’s face. “Take it in, feel it all, and hold it.” Niall nodded slowly, and Liam smiled when he watched Niall bite his lip to contain a large grin. “Eyes on you, eyes on me.” Their eyes met, and it was as if the world stopped. Each of them stopped breathing, and even for Liam, staring into Niall’s eyes like that caused butterflies to spring into his stomach and his heart to beat faster. He was falling in love with Niall all over again. “We’re doing this right.”

Liam was almost nervous to sing the next part, but he almost didn’t care anymore. Liam was slowly dancing, stepping backwards and forward, and a smile of complete love and adoration was plastered to his face as he stared without a care in the world toward Niall. “’Cause lovers dance when they’re feeling in love, spotlight shining, it’s all about us.” He was relieved when Niall didn’t jump at the word ‘lovers,’ and he was brave enough to start spinning a bit with Niall in his arms. Niall didn’t break their gaze, and honestly, Liam was relieved he didn’t. They stayed tangled in each other’s arms, and Niall’s laugh sounded a few times as they moved.

He tightened his hold on Niall’s waist, feeling how relaxed their bodies were together. “It’s all about us.” He said softly, and he could feel the absolute joy shoot through him when Niall nodded.

Every heart in the room will melt, this is a feeling I’ve never felt, but, it’s all about us.

Niall’s smile spread widely, and the male stepped off of Liam’s feet much to Liam’s disapproval, but he started to pull Liam in his own direction, twirling the two of them around and stepping backwards and forward, to the sides, and every which way. There didn’t have to be real music playing for the two of them to be acting like they were. It was just how they were.

Suddenly, I’m feeling brave. I don’t know what’s got into me, why I feel this way.

Niall’s arms fell down to reach for Liam’s hands, and he started to pull Liam around, and the two of them twirled, their hands latched in each other’s still as they twisted their arms above their heads. Because they weren’t coordinated enough, they had to release their hands when they realized they were too tangled up.

Can we dance real slow? Can I hold you, can I hold you close?

When Niall finished, Liam was quick to see that Niall was about to fall over from their dizzying movements. Out of instinct to protect the one he loved, Liam quickly reached out to grab him, but Liam reached too far and fell forward as well. He quickly put his arms out, his hands hitting the grass and his legs collapsing to the ground. He opened his eyes slightly to see where Niall had been, and he looked down to see two wide eyes staring back at him. Liam’s breath hitched in his chest and he could feel his heartbeat picking up. Liam had fallen on top of Niall, and Liam hovered just inches above him. Niall propped himself up on his elbows and Liam could see the nerves spring out of him. But he froze when their faces got closer.

The room’s hush, hush, and now’s our moment. Take it in, feel it all, and hold it.

Liam watched as Niall’s cheeks reddened, the color spreading quickly over his pale cheeks. So many things were racing through Liam’s mind while he hovered like he did over Niall. Their faces were just inches apart and Liam could have sworn he felt Niall’s breath against his lips, causing that tingling sensation that he hadn’t felt in forever. He hadn’t realized how much he had missed kissing Niall until he looked at those lips – slightly chapped, but thin and smooth – and he hadn’t known how much he longed to feel them against his own again. Their gaze broke apart when Niall looked away, just momentarily, and Liam’s mind raced faster. Maybe it still wasn’t the right time for this. Maybe Liam was too close and he was making Niall nervous. Maybe Niall wasn’t ready again. But, before Liam tried to move, a pesky little voice sounded through his head. “I think he’s ready. Don’t take things too slow.” What if Liam didn’t try? Would he ever get that opportunity again?

Eyes on you, eyes on me, we’re doing this right.

Niall’s and Liam’s eyes connected once again and Liam’s breath hitched in his throat, stuck there as Niall’s eyes stared back at him. It was something about those piercing blue eyes that always threw Liam off, completely freezing his racing mind and easing his worry. Those eyes broke Liam’s wall down, and he was no longer holding back because he just simply couldn’t anymore. He took a chance and leaned down, feeling the ghost of Niall’s lips against his own. He saw Niall’s eyes widen, but they then started to close; Liam was suddenly feeling brave. He pressed down, kissing Niall softly and letting the initial adrenaline run through him. But soon, as he continued to kiss him, it became more desperate and determined. Niall had resisted at first, which was discouraging, but the resistance ended quickly and was replaced with willingness and need. Niall kissed Liam with the same determination and passion Liam had been giving him, and the sensation was unlike no other.

‘Cause lovers dance when they’re feeling in love. Spotlight shining, it’s all about us.

An arm snaked around Liam’s neck, and when Liam tried to pull up and away, Niall moved with him, keeping their lips pressed firmly together. That meant so much to Liam, and even as he couldn’t breathe, he kept kissing Niall, unable to pull away. Finally, when he broke away to get a much needed breath, only an inch away from Niall’s lips, be breathed heavily and leaned his head gently against Niall’s forehead. “Niall… I-I’m… I’m sorry. I don’t know what…”

“Liam, you don’t have to apologize or defend yourself… Just… let it be what it is, alright?” It honestly silenced Liam, completely pulling Liam from his train of thought. He didn’t expect Niall to give that kind of answer, and yet, he was more relieved to hear that answer than anything else he could have heard.

Without notice or warning, Liam tensed up when he felt Niall’s other hand trail up his chest. There was a smile spreading on Niall’s lips and Liam glanced down to see something he hadn’t seen in weeks. He saw the real Niall. Everything was still Niall, but he saw the Niall he used to know so well. If Liam hadn’t known better, everything could have been back to normal, and he wouldn’t have known the difference.

Liam was so focused on his thoughts that he almost didn’t realize that Niall had moved his head forward. He didn’t know what came over him in that moment, but as Niall connected their lips again for the second time that night, the tears pricked happily in his eyes out of pure joy for what was happening. Niall was kissing him. Sure, he had kissed Liam a few weeks ago, but this was better in so many ways. Liam could kiss Niall back and feel no guilt or worry again.

Every heart in the room will melt, this is a feeling I’ve never felt, but, it’s all about us.

When the kiss finally broke again, both of them had dumb little smiles plastered on their faces. “Maybe I should get up…” Liam mumbled a bit, looking around at their surroundings. Niall nodded and waited patiently for Liam to get up so he could be helped up by Liam. “Want to go back inside?”

“Sure,”Niall said with that smile. Liam grabbed Niall’s hand, and he pulled the male towards the door. That was when he realized how tight Niall’s grip had been on his hand, and Liam couldn’t have been happier.


	8. Chapter 8

The weekend and the following week had passed, Niall and Liam getting closer and closer each day. They kissed a few more times, but it was never quite the same as the kiss in the back yard. So on Saturday afternoon – Niall was still asleep, which would have been strange if he hadn’t been at the studio until three in the morning – Liam decided to finally take a chance and ask Niall out on their official ‘first date’ again. He was a bit nervous, saying he really had nowhere to hide this time if Niall said ‘no’ since they were living in the same flat and everything.

As quietly as he could, Liam pushed open the door to the guest room. His eyes flashed instantly to the bed in the middle of the room, and he was relieved to see Niall still asleep. Tiptoeing, Liam made his way directly to the side of the bed and set a note down on the nightstand. He was sure to put it on top of Niall’s phone so he would see it, even though that really meant nothing. The note could slip, or Niall could just push it out of the way. It wasn’t like he was asking Niall out on the date through the note; it was just instructions to come out to the living room. He hadn’t done this when he originally went on his date with Niall either, but he wanted to give Niall less of a reason to say ‘no’. Soundlessly, Liam tiptoed out of the room to get out to the living room to check for the third time that everything was ready when Niall woke up. He had taken the time to make Niall and himself lunch, all set up in the living room and ready for him to eat. It was just a little nerve-wracking because he didn’t know what he would do if Niall said he didn’t want to go, but he knew that asking Niall in person was more, well, personal, and it meant more coming from Liam’s mouth than it did written down on a note.

He adjusted the plates just a bit and took a seat. He knew he was too nervous to eat right now. He hadn’t been this nervous around Niall since the first time he told Niall he had developed feelings for him. It was easy to see the nerves sparking in Liam’s veins and through his body. All of this was too much for him but he knew that if he wanted his relationship with Niall back, he had to do this. He didn’t have a choice.

Maybe ten minutes later, Niall emerged from the guest room as he rubbed the sleep from his eyes and stretched out his body. Liam could see the piece of paper in his hand, and his heart jumped out of his chest momentarily. This was it. He was about to ask Niall out on their first date for the second time. He studied Niall fairly closely to wait for his reaction, and it was pretty fair of Liam to say that once he saw Liam on the couch, he was fairly surprised. “A note and lunch? Wow, something much be up.” Niall snickered just a bit before he approached the couch, surveying the food on the plate. “Hmm. There’s a chicken wrap, French fries, fruit… okay, really, what’s going on?”

Liam’s laugh was a bit pained, but tried to play it off as nothing. “Let’s eat before we get to that,” Liam said with a smile. He didn’t hesitate to grab his plate, and he waited for Niall to do so as well before taking a bite of his creation. It was good, but of course, Liam was too nervous to even be thinking about the flavors and such. Niall shrugged a bit and dove into the food. Even after knowing Niall for four years, it amazed Liam how hungry he could be. He was amazed at how much he could eat and still stay fit and amazingly skinny. It was a talent, and in all honesty, Liam was kind of jealous. He’d never tell Niall that, but it was still pretty amazing.

It was made obvious that Liam was caught in his act of staring, because Niall looked up at him slowly. “What? Is there something on my face other than your food?” he asked, touching his face self-consciously. Liam blinked a bit and shook his head, trying to play it off as nothing yet again. Niall wasn’t buying it though, and he narrowed his eyes just a bit. “What’s going on with you today?” He set the other half of his wrap down and picked up a few fries in the process. Liam was contemplating telling Niall and asking him right then and there, but what if he said no? Liam was freaking out over this, and he was so nervous that Niall was going to hate the idea of going on a date with him in the first place. He couldn’t help but feel these things. He just wanted Niall back. That’s all he wanted. “Come on, out with it,” Niall said, keeping his hands away from the food on his plate.

Taking a shaky, nervous breath, Liam looked down at his own hands, feeling the trembling from his nerves kick in. It felt like at this point that Liam wasn’t ready for this. Maybe he could deal with not being more romantic with Niall. Maybe he could get away with just being like this, taking things really slow. When he was about to just give up and decide not to ask Niall, he felt a hand on his arm. “Liam, whatever it is, you don’t have to be nervous. I mean, we’ve been best friends for two years. You know that you can tell me anything.”

With that, Liam turned to Niall. This was it. Things could possibly change forever right now. “Alright… So, I was wondering… if maybe, you wanted to go out on our first date?” When the words finally left his mouth, Liam couldn’t close it, waiting in anticipation for Niall’s answer. He could feel his nerves working against him, tickling his insides and forcing his heart to beat faster than normal, even now. He felt the need to add encouragement words of sorts to what he said, since Niall had been taking more than two seconds to answer. “If you don’t want to, that’s fine, but I thought I would at least ask…” Liam said. He felt his head drop a bit, just waiting for Niall to say that he didn’t want to and break his heart. Liam couldn’t help but feel like maybe he was the stupid one for even thinking that Niall was ready. He was starting to beat himself up mentally, thinking really harsh things about himself.

Niall finally looked up to Liam, and the brunette couldn’t believe his eyes. Niall was smiling, grinning almost. He was about to ask Niall why he was smiling, something that almost always made Liam smile, even in this moment, and he watched Niall drop his own head almost bashfully. “I would love to Liam. I thought you would never ask, to be honest,” he said when he looked back up to Liam, his smile getting bigger and bigger as his excitement for the new situation grew.

That was when he froze. Niall had leaned out and pressed his lips to Liam’s cheek, nearly hitting his lips, but missed of course. That was how it always worked, right? Either way, Niall seemed to be playing this off as nothing. It looked to Liam that Niall thought Liam asking him on a date wasn’t a big deal, or he didn’t act as if it were at any rate. But, to Liam, it meant everything to him. This was on step closer to getting them back to being normal again. His silence didn’t go unnoticed by Niall as he sat there, eating away at his wrap. “Li what’s wrong?” he asked as he chewed on the second half of the wrap. Liam couldn’t explain exactly what he was feeling, but he knew that Niall saying yes to go out on the date was a good thing. At the same time, though, he was afraid to even think about the date.

“Nothing!” he blurted out, surprising Niall tremendously. “I’m really excited about this, that’s all, really!” he said, a smile spreading on his lips, even if it were just a bit staged, or fake. He was in fact excited, but what if he screwed this up? This date changed everything for them. He wasn’t this nervous about the date the first time, and, well, even he thought he had to calm down right now. “So, is tonight okay then?” Liam asked, turning to look at Niall.

The blonde nodded his head, smiling honestly. Liam had fallen in love with that smile a long time again, and every time he saw it, no matter what mood he was in, it just found a way to calm him down. “What time?”

“Seven thirty?” he hadn’t actually planned what time he wanted the date to be, even though he had set reservations for eight at the place he took Niall the first time. “Wear something nice, but not too overdone,” Liam said, reaching down for his wrap. He could get through this. He just had to breathe.

________________________________

Adjusting his button-up shirt, Liam stared at the face in the mirror, trying to find a better way to do this. He found himself panicking about how he looked at the moment. His hair looked fine, and so did his clothing, but he was trying to impress Niall. It didn’t matter what he thought, it only mattered what Niall thought. When they went on their first date last time, Liam had spent a lot of time making sure he looked alright for the date. He spent just as much this time around, if not more. Turning around, ithe floor was littered with different shirts and pairs of pants. He knew he was acting like a teenaged girl, but Liam wanted his life back, and this date had to be perfect for that to happen. Or, it had to be close to it.

When he settled on an outfit finally, he prepared himself by grabbing his phone and his walled, and turning off his light. He had told Niall he would wait for him in the living room, and they could head out from there.

It was 7:25, so he knew Niall had five minutes or so, but Liam really just wanted to get the dated started already. It was Liam’s conscience battling inside him, telling him that he needed to calm down and just enjoy the date, but his over-analytical mind kept telling him not to screw things up. He was so conflicted on how to behave and what to do right now, he just wanted to get this over with. He knew very well that thinking that was not a good sign.

A few moments later as Liam’s mind battled away, Niall had come into the living room, holding Liam’s jacket in is arms with his jacket already on him. “Here,” he said, coming close to Liam and holding open the jacket. He raised an eyebrow to the male, but turned around so he could let Niall put it on him. “It’s cold,” Niall mumbled, and Liam slid his arms in the open jacket as Niall pushed it up on his body.

Just a little thing like that made Liam relax and he finally let his jitters and mind calm down. His conscience was right. It he just focused on having a good time, everything should fall in to place, right? Niall wanted to do this, and Liam wanted to as well, more than anything. They had known each other, in Niall’s mind, for just about two years, so what could seriously go wrong at this point?

They stood in silence for a few moments before Liam cleared his throat. He smiled when he looked up to Niall finally, motioning to the door. “Shall we?” Liam asked. Niall nodded, and the two of them went out into the cool winter air.

The two of them slid into Liam’s car, and they drove off to Liam’s planned date destination, chatting away like they always had. Everything was just like it had been over the past month, and quite honestly, Liam was glad to keep it that way for now. It was just more comfortable, since Liam knew he wasn’t overstepping any boundary, and it was better for Niall in the long run to take things slower than normal for the two of them – until he figured himself out. When they arrived to a park about fifteen minutes later, near the restaurant Liam planned on taking Niall to, he parked the car on the street and got out quickly so he could open up Niall’s door. He held out his hand, and he could hear that signature laugh of Niall’s. “You’re definitely not being corny or anything. It’s cute, don’t worry.” Liam felt his cheeks warm up, but he was so pale from the cold anyway, he bet Niall couldn’t tell. “So, what’s on the agenda, then?” Niall asked nonchalantly, but Liam wasn’t going to fall for that one. All afternoon, Niall had been bothering Liam about where they were going. He wanted to keep it a secret so Niall couldn’t judge the date beforehand. Besides, he knew how much Niall liked surprises.

“Sorry, but you’ll just have to wait to see,” Liam said smoothly, and a laugh was soon to follow when Niall went out a whine. Liam shut the car door behind Niall, and started to walk slowly through the park. The restaurant was about a ten minute walk from the park, and he wanted to take Niall through the park like he did the first time they went on their date. It had significance the last time, but he wasn’t sure if it would this time around or not.

“Liam, seriously, where are we going? It’s freezing out here,” Niall said as he pressed against Liam’s arm. Liam didn’t hesitate to put an arm around Niall’s shoulder, and Niall seemed to lean into the touch dramatically. That was just good for him. He liked that Niall wanted them to be close.

Liam didn’t realize it was going to be as cold as it was, or he wouldn’t have done it this way. It was a bit warmer the last time they did this, but then again, that was more than two years ago, back in late October. “Sorry about that. I didn’t think it would be this cold. Poor planning on my part,” Liam said with a nervous chuckle. Niall’s laugh followed, but Liam frowned when he felt Niall pull away from Liam’s grasp. It didn’t matter he guessed, but he would have liked to keep his arm around Niall.

“It’s fine, Li. I can deal with a little cold. As long as it isn’t for too long, I’ll be fine.” Liam’s pace picked up just a tiny bit so they could get to the restaurant faster, and it was obvious that Niall didn’t seem to notice or care. Liam didn’t want to be in the cold that long either. They fell into a silence, and at first, it started to worry Liam, but when a cold hand touched his, his worry disappeared as he felt nervousness spread over him. Well, here went nothing. Liam curled his own hand around the cold one beside him, his right hand and fingers sliding slowly between Niall’s. When Niall returned the action, squeezing Liam’s hand lightly, a smile spread over his fine lips. “Hmm, you have warm hands,” Niall said, looking up to Niall as he smiled to him, those thin, chapped lips creating one of the most adorable smiles he had ever seen. It reached his eyes, and Liam couldn’t help but stare. They had held hands before they started dating, but again, it was a whole different ballgame right now.

As they walked, Liam saw the restaurant that had been the start of their two year relationship that Liam was trying to rebuild. “There it is,” Liam said, pointing with his free hand. Niall squinted at the small building across the street from the large park they were currently in to make out where they were heading. The restaurant was a small, cozy thing, but the food was absolutely incredible and the people were sweet that worked there. That was exactly why Liam chose it in the first place. “I know, it doesn’t look like much, but trust me.”

Niall squeezed Liam’s hand. “I wouldn’t be here if I hadn’t trusted you since the accident, Liam. I trust you,” he said as they pushed open the front door of the restaurant and headed inside. The first thing they both noticed was that there were only a few people there, meaning it was a quiet night for the little restaurant. The smell was of home, and either of them could have felt comfortable there at any given time it seemed. Niall and Liam let their hands fall from each other’s as a waitress approached. She was an older lady with a heart pen sticking out from behind her ear. “Hello,” Niall said with a smile. He seemed to be fairly excited about this evening.

“Well hello there. It’s been quite some time since I’ve seen you two. Probably a year now, correct? I remember seeing you here on your first anniversary. It’s good to see you here again.” The lady made her way behind the podium. “Two for Payne, correct?” she asked, looking at Liam, and Niall’s brow furrowed. Of course he was confused, and Liam would have to explain, but that could happen after they were seated of course. “Alright, follow me.” The lady took the two of them to a table on the right hand side, next to the window. “I’ll be right back with some water. Just let me know when you’re ready to order, alright?” They took their seats kiddy-corner from each other and she set the menu’s down in front of them, smiling brightly.

Once she had left, Niall turned his attention back to Liam. “We came here on our first anniversary?” Liam hadn’t let Niall in on any of the secrets about the date, so of course he would be just a bit confused. Liam grinned a bit sheepishly, turning his head down to look at the menu. “Liam, that has to be the sweetest thing in the world. I wish I could remember this,” he said, looking around the restaurant.

Liam looked back up, glad that Niall didn’t think that Liam was crazy or something. “Well, actually… We came here on our first date too. Our first date… well, it was kind of perfect, and although I could never replace it, I thought that I could at least try to recreate that experience for your sake,” he said, shrugging just a bit. Liam flipped open the menu, the options still the same from last time they were there. He decided to get the same thing he got the last two times, sticking with what he knew. Niall was still staring at Liam, and when he finally looked up, Niall was shaking his head at Liam. “What?” he asked, a bit confused.

“You’re too perfect. Stop it,” Niall said, a laugh escaping his lips. Liam chuckled a bit, although he was a bit confused. Niall finally opened his menu, and his eyes grazed over all the choices. “Too much to choose from,” he whined, and Liam laughed. Niall said that at every restaurant they went to, so it wasn’t much of a surprise that he said it here too. He watched as Niall searched through the menu, trying to decide what to eat. “Okay… I think I know what I want.”

“You know, if you’re not sure, you can just get more than one thing and we can take whatever you don’t eat home with us…” Liam suggested, since Niall looked a bit pained in his answer. The relief on Niall’s face was priceless. Liam was in love with a goof, and he knew it too. That didn’t matter.

A few moments had passed, and in that time the waitress had come back to take their order and get their drinks to them. “So how is that little girl that came in a few days ago? The one with all the bruises?” Niall asked, his eyes looking a bit pained as he picked up his glass and drank through the straw. “I know you’re not supposed to give away any information, but it’s not like I have anyone to tell anyway,” he said. Liam had told Niall all about this little girl that came in to the building, covered in bruises and scrapes, and was running away from home. It wasn’t the first time something like that had happened, but it didn’t happen often, and every time, Liam felt so horrible about it. “Was she taken into like… protective custody or something?”

Liam shrugged a bit. “I don’t know. It’s not my case, but if I had to guess, the parents are going to be found guilty of child abuse. She probably won’t be going back to live with them, which is also hard to do to a kid, but sometimes you don’t have much of a choice.” That was a lovely topic to talk about on their ‘first date’, wasn’t it? Liam didn’t want it to be remembered like that to be perfectly honest, but he knew the topic would change shortly. “Oh! How did you guys do finishing the album last night? I never asked.”

Niall laughed, thinking for a moment. “Well, it went really great, actually. I’m just glad it’s over. Back to recording singles,” Niall said with a light laugh. Recording albums had always been a pain for the studio, but it was great for their business and great money too. It only made them prosper, even if some of the albums are unknown artists. They were trying to attract different types of artists, and hopefully it would happen soon for them.

The two lovebirds chatted away until their food came, and then they continued to chat into their meal, goofing around like usual. Liam scooped up a bit of his food and offered it to Niall, who didn’t hesitate to eat it off of Niall’s fork. He hummed out an approval, nodding his head, and he actually did the same thing by getting a bite of his own food and waving it in front of Liam’s face gently. Liam grinned and took the bite, appreciating the food in his mouth. It was really great.

By the end of the night, Niall and Liam had finished most of the food on the table and had scooted closer to each other, their legs touching under the table, and neither of them moving to create space. Niall was drawing things on Liam’s hand with his finger, without realizing it, and the waitress came back. “Same thing as the last two times?” she asked as she picked up the plates on the table. Liam nodded, and Niall’s brow furrowed. “It should be out in about five minutes.”

“What should be out in five minutes?” Niall leaned back in his seat, running his other hand over his stomach. “I can’t eat anymore, Liam…” he said, and Liam rolled his eyes when he said that. It was pretty rare that Niall couldn’t actually eat anymore.

“It’s not big, I promise,” Liam said, rubbing Niall’s shoulder. Those five minutes passed slowly as the plate came out. It was filled with different finger desserts, and Niall sat up, a smile spreading on his face. “See? Not big at all.” He couldn’t help but chuckle, and he sat up a little straighter, looking at the different deserts. In the middle was a glass of cookie dough ice cream, two forks sticking in the desert; the waitress had learned the first time, which Liam was grateful for, to not use spoons for his sake. It was just his strange phobia, and he still had it. Niall reached out to grab something on the plate, and Liam cut him off. “There’s a rule though,” he said, and Niall cocked an eyebrow at the male.

“A rule to eating desert?” he asked. On their anniversary, they decided that any time they came here they would have a rule when it came to eating the desert, and Liam wanted to keep it that way. He wished he didn’t have to explain it to Niall, but he didn’t have much of an option. “Alright, what is it?”

Rather than explaining to Niall, he reached out an picked up the thing Liam thought Niall was going after, and he brought the finger food up to Niall’s mouth. Niall looked a bit confused, but he obviously picked up on it as he ate the desert out of Liam’s fingers, smiling a bit. Niall reached hesitantly to one of the deserts, picking up something chocolate and bringing it to Liam’s mouth. Liam opened his mouth and let Niall put it in, which he then chewed up. Every time, the deserts seemed to get better and better. “We are such strange people,” Niall said, laughing a bit as Liam reached out to give Niall another one. This time, as he did, he felt Niall’s tongue graze his finger, and he chuckled a bit when Niall’s eyes widened a little. “Sorry!” he said with a mouth full of chocolate. Liam didn’t care. How many times had Niall licked Liam’s fingers? Many times, from what he could remember. But then again, Niall obviously didn’t remember that.

The two of them finished feeding each other, the ice cream being the perfect thing to finish the meal off with, and Liam paid for the meal. They waved the waitress goodbye, and Liam’s hand slid comfortably into Niall’s as they walked back out into the freezing air. Neither of them seemed to care how cold it was though. “That was great,” Niall said finally, the warm air in his lungs creating mist in the air as it left his mouth. Liam pressed just a little closer to Niall as they walked, their jackets finally brushing together as they walked.

“I’ve got something I want to show you,” Liam said, redirecting them as they walked. They were relatively close to their car at that point, and Liam just pulled him onto a different pathway. Then, they stepped off the path and walked straight towards a large white tree. He pulled Niall closer, who was obviously confused. Liam’s eyes searched the tree until he found what he was looking for. “So, two years ago, on our first date, we came back here and, well…” Liam’s free hand reached up and pointed at a marking in the tree. It was what looked like a heart, and two names were in the tree. Niall looked at it for a while until it clicked. He leaned into Liam tremendously.

“I would do it again,” he said softly reaching up to touch the heart with their names in it. He traced over Liam’s name, stopping on the ‘M’ at the end and turning his head to look at Liam. “I love you.”

Before Liam could respond, Niall was moving to kiss Liam, and the two of them wrapped their arms around each other, kissing the other’s cold lips gently before pulling away. The night couldn’t have been any more perfect. “I love you too…” Liam whispered, not having said that for two months now.

When they finally went back to the car, the two boys slid into the seats and just sat there for a minute. “Next time, I’ll let you carve it. You could probably do a better job than I did…” Niall said, laughing just a little bit.

Liam joined in on the laughter. “I think you did fine,” he said, looking back out at the tree. But, something clicked in his mind. How had Niall known that it was him that carved their names into the tree? Liam hadn’t told him, and it wasn’t like you could tell that Niall had done it. “Niall, how did-”

“Liam, move the car!” Niall shouted suddenly, cutting Liam off. Liam blinked a bit as he saw Niall’s wide, frightened eyes staring behind him. “Fuck, Liam!” Niall said as he reached out to Liam and pulled his head and shoulders down and against his chest. Things went in slow motion as Liam heard the crunching of metal and the smashing of glass, and finally, the cracking of something he didn’t want to think about. The last thing he remembered was feeling Niall’s arms around him before the world went dark.


	9. Chapter 9

There was a darkness, so dark and powerful that it was blinding. It was accompanied by a silence that burned the ears and pierced straight to the mind. The black abyss was so daunting that it ate through everything and tried to destroy everything in its path. Niall was next.

The darkness pulled on Niall, and the more he fought it, the more it attacked him. The less he fought it, and gave in, the more at rest Niall felt, and the more he just wanted to sleep and let go. Why was he fighting the darkness anyway? What was the reason? Did it even matter?

A sudden jolt of pain surged through Niall, and for a mere second, lights flashed around him and he could hear things. Oh, the sound was magnificent and the lights were beautiful to see. It made Niall curious, and he wanted to see more. He wanted to hear it all again. But, oh, those lights came with a price. That mere second of lights and sound came with that rush of pain that was almost too unbearable. How could he deal with that again? He didn’t want to. It was horrible enough to keep him far away and push deeper into the darkness. Being pain-free was a good thing, right? No pain no problem.

Once again, though, Niall felt that rush of pain, completely overtaking his body, surging through his veins and bending his bones. His insides felt like they were on fire and quite honestly, he would have given anything to make it leave. But there it was again; those wonderful lights and sounds that swirled around and fascinated Niall. His senses were coming back to him, and his mind started to put pieces together. He had to fight through that pain. He had to make it to those lights and sounds again. He had to get back.

Another dose of pain was dealt to his chest, and he cried out, his throat burning and his head pounding as he cried out. Each time he was sent back to those lights and sounds, he became more coherent. He could think again, and he started to put things together. The sounds, the yelling and the beeping, the pain going through him… he was in an ambulance. Once that was cleared, he felt hands touching his sides and working on him, trying to fix him. His eyes refused to open as he sat there, trying to figure out what had happened. But then it started to come back to him. It was becoming more and more clear. He could now remember clearly as the headlights came towards him and….

The very second Niall thought about Liam, he woke up completely and sprang into a sitting position, the blinding and blinking lights of the ambulance pounding through his brain. “Niall, you need to lie back down. You have cracked ribs and they are bleeding internally..” someone said as he felt arms try to pull him down. Niall looked around frantically, struggling with the arms trying to get him down. Liam wasn’t in the ambulance with him. That frightened Liam more than anything. Where was he?

“Where is he?” Niall asked, shouting through their pleads to get him back down. He felt arms pull on him again, and he continued to struggle with them as he looked around the ambulance. Something was wrong with Liam. Something was really wrong with Liam. He should have been there in the ambulance with him. “Get the fuck off me! Where is Liam?!” he nearly creamed fighting for control once more.

Niall was pulled harshly onto the stretcher and held down by a man with a lot of strength. Niall pushed against him, trying to sit up again, but he gave it. All the hate in the world couldn’t explain how Niall was feeling right then ad in all honesty, he would have punched the guy in the face if he had the chance. “Liam is in the ambulance ahead of us. We need to get the bleeding on your head to stop and we can’t risk more internal bleeding than what is already happening. So stay down, or I will strap you down,” he threatened, his voice stern and serious.

Reluctantly, Niall gave in, but it was more by default than anything as he started to realize how much pain he was really in. The adrenaline started to wear down as he felt the pain in his body, Liam was in another ambulance. That was not a good thing. That meant that he was hurt even worse than Niall, or not doing well at all. His face paled and he felt his stomach churn at the thought of it. “Is he… is he alright?” His voice was small, and it broke as he spoke. His heart was breaking with every second that passed. Looking at the man above him, he saw the stiff expression on his face as he unwrapped gauze. That meant that Liam was not okay. “Oh my god… I’m going to be sick…” Niall said as he tried to turn his head. He wasn’t joking. The man had just enough time to pull the bucket forward and Niall emptied his stomach into the bucket, blood coming out with his meal. He waited until he finished until he pulled back up, lying back down on the stretcher. If Liam wasn’t okay, then that meant horrible things had happened.

The last thing Niall remembered was pulling Liam against him and feeling himself crash through the side of the door and window. With all the adrenaline running through him, it was no wonder he wasn’t feeling very much of the pain he should have been in right then. “They are doing the best they can to help him, alright?”

Niall couldn’t even nod. They had to fix Liam. They had to make this right. Niall couldn’t live without Liam. The lump in his throat forming made it hard to breathe in and out, and his vision became fuzzy slowly. “Whoa… calm down a bit, Niall. Your heart is already unstable. We will let you see him as soon as possible, alright?” The problem was, as soon as possible wasn’t soon enough. He wanted to see Liam now, not when they felt like letting him see Liam. “Let’s get you better so you can be there for him later, okay? He’s going to need you.”

Niall’s mind started to go numb at the thought of Liam not being okay. The man could have told him that Liam was alright, and his mind would have been much better off, even though he would have still worried. But, no. The man just had to tell Niall he wasn’t okay… And Liam was going to need him? Niall needed Liam, not the other way around, but he needed to be with Liam. He needed him to be okay. If Liam wasn’t okay… Niall refused to think about that.

Everything from that point on happened so slowly, and it made every second more agonizing for Niall as they approached the hospital. Everything started to hurt more, from his head to his lungs and chest; even Niall’s legs and arms were sore and painful. His abdomen was what hurt the most, and it finally clicked that the EMT had said he had broken or cracked a few ribs during the crash. Looking down at his abdomen – which he realized finally was unclothed now – he could see the dark circles and bruises already formed on his abdomen and chest. “So… does anyone know what happened? I mean… I remember the car coming towards us… but once it hit I really can’t remember anything else…” All he remembered was grabbing onto Liam and holding onto him for dear life.

“From the looks of it, the impact was strong enough to send both you and Liam out of the passenger’s side window, and you were pretty lucky. No glass in your skin, no broken arms or a cracked skull… Many other things could have happened to you.” The male started to wrap up Niall’s arm which Niall hadn’t realized he had already cleaned up. Niall didn’t even realize his arm was bleeding. That was how focused on Liam he had been. Niall sighed, but he let the guy do his job without complaining anymore. The guy looked up when he heard the driver speak and Niall listened as well as he could.

“The other ambulance is at the hospital. The male is going to x-ray and may be going straight to surgery. They think he may have damaged the spinal cord,” the driver said. Niall’s eyes went wide, and he looked up frantically to the EMT, looking for some sort of reassurance that this wasn’t a bad thing. But the look on the guy’s face was heartbreaking, and Niall couldn’t have been more devastated.

Liam needed surgery. He was going into fucking surgery. Why did this have to happen? Why couldn’t it have been Niall to be driving and more severely injured? Why couldn’t it have been Niall to be going to the operating room instead of Liam? “This doesn’t mean anything, alright? They might think he’s damaged his spinal cord, but half the time they are wrong from the initial assessment. They may even call off the surgery.” That wasn’t enough. A fifty-fifty shot was not good enough for Niall, and he wanted closure. How could this be happening right now? Life was just getting back on track, and now things were falling apart quickly once again.

Niall couldn’t tell you how long he remembered being in the ambulance for, but he could tell you that it felt like ages. He knew that they wouldn’t let him go anywhere once they got him out and into the emergency room since they needed to take x-rays and determine if his ribs needed further attention or not. All Niall could hope was that Liam was being taken care of and treated and healed. The prospect of something going wrong during surgery or even before he got there scared Niall shitless. Once they reached the radiology lab after getting out of the ambulance, Niall was moved onto a flat, cold surface and they started to take x-rays of his abdomen. As uncomfortable as he was, they got the images they needed to confirm that Niall had indeed cracked two ribs. As he was put back into the emergency room, he sat there helplessly as they put an IV into his arm and gave him pain killers intravenously for the pain he was going through. That didn’t matter to Niall anymore though. He just wanted to see Liam.

As the doctor came back in to see Niall, he took a seat next to him and sighed. “Alright, so you have two fractured ribs, nothing too serious, and you are bruised up pretty bad. You may experience whiplash, but other than that, nothing else seems to have happened. You were pretty lucky,” he said, taking a deep breath. “So be careful on your abdomen, alright? Not too much bending, careful about reaching for things and be careful not to twist too quickly. It will either fracture the rib further or just put you in a lot of unnecessary pain. We’re going to write you a prescription for some pain killers – strong ones, I should add – to help with your pain, and we want to keep you over night to be sure everything is okay. If we think there will be any complications we will keep you for longer than that,” the doctor noted. He stood up and turned to face Niall’s bed. “Any questions?”

Niall cleared his throat. He could have cared less about how long they wanted to keep him there, honestly. He did care about Liam though. “Um… Do you know anything about the other male that came in right before me…? Liam…?” Niall asked softly, trying not to break as the possibilities of all the horrors that could have been happening to Liam. It just broke him to pieces.

As the doctor looked him over, his brow furrowed as he thought. “Liam Payne? He was the one you were in the crash with, right? You were both in his car…” The doctor sighed, giving a sympathetic look to Niall. “He’s in critical condition right now. He doesn’t need surgery, but he’s unconscious still. He’s breathing on his own again which is a good thing,” he said. ‘He’s breathing on his own again…’ Niall thought to himself. So he wasn’t breathing on his own before. He had stopped breathing sometime between the accident and now. Niall was in complete disbeliefs. Liam was dying. The truth hit him like a freight train, and Niall was completely frozen. He could actually lose Liam, and Jesus, Niall wasn’t ready for that. He was not even close to being ready for that information. The doctor looked back up and Niall, which was a good thing, because when Niall had learned that information, he had completely, stopped breathing. His mind was so overstressed that the room started to spin, and his chest got tight. The lights started to dim, and he couldn’t hear the doctor shouting at him. He watched as nurses swarmed into the room, and he felt the bed go backwards. It wasn’t much longer until Niall passed out.

_________________

A faint beeping sounded in the room, and rang slightly in Niall’s ears. At first, he wasn’t sure whether to ignore it, or to investigate. It kept going, and well, it was pretty slow. But, the beeping continued, and it became louder. Everything was dark, and honestly, he preferred it that way. His eyelids felt heavy and stuck to each other, so what was the point of opening them anyway? But that pestering beeping noise kept going on, and he tried to shuffle in the bed, but that was not the right move to make. That fucking hurt. Even just shifting his shoulders hurt, and well, he didn’t want to do that again. He coughed a bit feeling how dry and sore his throat felt. Reluctantly, Niall opened his eyes and snapped them back close when he realized that he couldn’t. The room was spinning fast, and he hadn’t even sat up yet. Well this was fucking great. But, he had to open his eyes. It would be the quickest way to figure out what was going on. Determined, his eyes did finally open up. With the room spinning, and the constant stream of beeping, and a new smell he hadn’t heard before, his stomach lurched forward. Luckily, he saw the metal pan on the side of the bed on a table, and he grabbed at it, quickly bringing it up to his lips. This was just perfect, wasn’t it? He lost his stomach, and filled the pan up with whatever he had inside him, which hadn’t been much from the looks of it. But oh, throwing up sucked. Not only did it smell and make Niall gag more, and not only did his stomach hurt, but it felt like his head at been smashed into a brick wall. His ribs felt like they were being sawed in half when he lurched forward, and oh God, his whole body ached, especially his abdomen and his back.

Once he calmed down enough and his stomach settled enough, he set the pan aside and started to glance around the room. Things stopped spinning for a while, and he could actually see things clearly. He looked down at himself first, and the first thing he saw was his arm had an IV in it, which completely startled him. Then, he felt the little pads on his body when he saw the wires coming off of his arms and through the openings of his hospital gown, which he had not been wearing before. He finally realized that the beeping was coming from a heart monitor, and it was because of the pads, and the things hooked on his finger. He was going to take it off, but he figured it wasn’t a good idea for the moment.

He finally remembered once again why he was even in the hospital, and his first instinct was to sit up, but he refrained from doing so quickly. He knew sitting up was probably not a good idea, but he needed to. He wanted to find Liam. He felt his bones shift and they seriously hurt like hell. Whatever painkillers they were giving him, if any, had very little to no effect. But he didn’t want to know what it was like to be in pain while he wasn’t on the medication. This was more painful than anything he had ever experienced. Reaching to the wall next to him, he pressed the nurse call button, and gingerly ran a hand over his abdomen. It was extremely sensitive to the touch, and he pulled his hand away. He could feel the ace bandage wrapped around him, and he figured it was to help with the cracked ribs. His arms were covered in purple and deep red bruises, and some of them had already turned a dark blue or black. He didn’t remember his arms looking like this before he passed out, but then again, he could hardly remember passing out.

The curtain to his room – he didn’t remember having a room before – slid open, and a girl with blonde hair and a friendly smile came in, pulling the curtain close behind her. He knew the girl very well. He had known her for years. “Hey, Leprechaun, you’re awake! How are you feeling?” She asked softly, coming in and walking closer to his bed. It was Perrie, and he was honestly surprised to see her. Did that mean Zayn was here too?

Niall cleared his throat for a bit, studying her just a little. She was so stunningly gorgeous, and she was a sweetheart. Zayn had found a great girl. “I feel like I fell out of a twenty story building.” He would have said ‘things could be worse,’ but he wasn’t willing to take that gamble right now. He didn’t know where Liam was, and he knew he wasn’t physically able to go see him right now. He wanted to more than anything, though. He had to see Liam. When Niall continued to study Perrie, as she approached, Niall was drawn to her eyes, and he blinked a bit. The red rings signaled to him that she had been crying.

Before he could ask, she cut in with more conversation. “Have you seen a nurse yet?” She seemed worried, and she crossed her arms over herself protectively. Perrie was never like this around Niall. They had known each other for years, and they were great friends. She was never closed off to him, and he didn’t like this one bit. “I can go grab one really quick if you’d like. They might be able to do something for that pai-” She stopped, and pinched her eyes together, and her face scrunched up. So that was why she was being closed off right now. That was why her eyes were puffy and she looked so pale. Even mentioning Liam’s last name set her off. Niall felt himself get extremely uneasy. “I’ll be right back…”

“Perrie, please don’t…” Niall said with strain as he sat up straighter. He winced when he did, and Perrie noticed. She approached the bed and reached down to get some sort of controller. She pressed a button, and the bed started to shift, the mattress going into a sitting position. Niall leaned against the mattress, feeling relief as he realized he didn’t have to hold himself up anymore. “You know I’m going to ask eventually…” he whispered, feeling his heart pound uncomfortably in his chest.

When he said that, Perrie sighed, looking up to him. She put a hand on his arm, and Niall thought it was over. Perrie, of all people, was about to tell Niall that his boyfriend was dead. “He’s in a coma, Niall. His body is fighting off infections and trying to repair itself… The doctors don’t have any idea how long he’s going to be like this. They don’t know if he will survive the coma either…” she said, each word getting smaller and softer, until it was a whisper.

Niall felt himself shaking, but, Liam wasn’t gone. That was a good thing. But he was in a coma. He was in a fucking coma. People died because of things like this. “I need to see him,” Niall said firmly. He found himself moving his legs, and Perrie saw instantly what he was trying to do. Her eyes widened, and she reached out and held onto his arms. Niall was weak right now, he couldn’t even fight off Perrie’s grasp. “You can’t. Not right now. They even swatted Zayn and Liam’s mum out right now. They are doing tests, Ni.”

Letting his body settle back down, he sighed heavily. “Perrie, I need to see him… I need to…” he said, and he was so broken. As he pinched his eyes together again, the curtain swung open. A nurse that Niall hadn’t recognized walked in, holding a few things that Niall knew to be medical supplies. “Help me…” he whispered desperately. Maybe there was a way to get them in the same room, or for someone to take him by wheelchair to go see Liam. He would walk there if that’s what it took. He couldn’t go another moment without seeing him, though. Perrie looked at him with painful eyes, which she pinched together. But, with agreement, she nodded. Niall knew this wasn’t going to be easy.

___________________________________________

Hours had passed, but for Niall, it felt like much more than that. Perrie and Zayn had both been arguing about getting Niall to see Liam with various doctors and nurses overseeing the two of them. It was stressful, but they hadn’t given up. Niall could hear a groan as Zayn came back into Niall’s room, and Niall could tell it was no use. He could still hear Perrie outside, arguing with the staff members, and he was trying to hear what they were saying, but he couldn’t. “You’re going to get to see him,” Zayn said. Niall’s eyes widened, and he felt his jaw drop. If that were the case, then why did Zayn come in with a groan? “I don’t care if I have to take you there myself. You are going to see him.” The male threw himself in the chair sitting against the wall, leaning his head back out of stress. “They said that putting you in the ICU was not a good idea, because moving you would be ‘difficult’ if they got another patient that needed to be in there. I don’t understand how difficult it is to just move you… Besides, there are three open beds in there. What are the chances of them getting three more ICU patients? And what do they do when they have-”

“Zayn…” Niall said, cutting him off. Being under stress made Niall’s heart rate go up, and the doctors and nurses told them that he needed to stay stable for a while, especially with his head injury from before. There was a silence that followed, but Niall filled that silence again. The silence freaked him out more than Zayn’s ranting. “Thanks for trying, mate. I appreciate it…” He looked down at his hands, wishing that he could just hold Liam’s again. Those hands always comforted him, especially during times like this.

It was just seconds later that Niall saw a doctor come in, and he was pushing a wheelchair. “Alright, Zayn. Help him up. We are taking him to see Liam.” Zayn looked just as surprised, and Niall froze. He was actually going to get to see him again? Zayn stood up, and Perrie, as well as Mrs. Payne, slid into the room. Mrs. Payne looked a bit frustrated. “Be careful that he doesn’t bend his abdomen too much…” The doctor came over with Zayn and the two reached out for Niall, helping him stand as easily as they could. They then helped Niall sit in the wheelchair, and sitting straight up was not comfortable one bit, especially with the pain caused by his ribs.

“We are going to see about getting your bed switched to the ICU, alright? That way you don’t have to sit in this uncomfortable thing to see Liam. Once you are off IV medications and are swallowing your pain medications, this will be much easier, alright?” The doctor said as they left the room, Zayn, Perrie, and Liam’s mum following along. Niall nodded, but he really wasn’t listening anymore. He was about to see Liam. Was he ready for this? Would he be able to handle seeing Liam like this? Did it even matter? Liam was everything to Niall. Liam was Niall’s world, and Niall had to be sure Liam would be okay.

They got closer and closer, and Niall could tell, because the hallways started to become less populated as they went on, and his eyes flashed up to a sign that said “Intensive Care Unit,” or better known as the ICU. This was really serious. Liam was actually in the ICU. The doctor reached over and pressed a pad thing, and the door slowly swung open. As the door opened up, Niall could instantly feel the change in atmosphere. The unit felt darker, and much gloomier. There was a row of seats, and Niall could see a person sitting there with his hands in his head, leaned over himself. He looked like he was crying, and Niall felt his heart break even more. He wanted to just hug the poor guy, but he couldn’t. He needed to see Liam. They continued on, and Niall looked around to see nurses walking with different supplies and charts, going in and out of different rooms and sitting behind the nurse’s station. They were all very serious, which was a bit of relief to Niall, since it seemed like they were taking their job seriously.

He kept looking around, trying to figure out where Liam could have possibly been. They were heading down a row of rooms, and finally, they turned to enter one, and Niall held his breath. Liam was in this room. Liam was here, and he would finally get to see him. He could only hope that Liam wasn’t in as bad of shape as they said he was. As they entered, Niall’s eyes shot straight to a bed, and he went stiff. There were wires, chords, tubes, everything littering his body. That was the first thing that Niall saw, and he almost wanted to reach out and pull it all off of him. But he knew that wasn’t a good idea. The doctor couldn’t have moved the wheelchair any slower, and when he stopped, Niall started to complain. “Closer!” he said, and the doctor shushed him, pushing Niall just a bit closer. They still weren’t close enough that Niall could reach him, and that was more frustrating than anything.

But as he started to look at Liam a little more closely, he could have just given up on life right then and there. Liam looked horrible. That was the easiest way to say it. His right arm was in a cast, and he finally let his eyes travel to Liam’s face. There were dark, dark circles under his eyes, and his face was puffy. His head was wrapped up like a mummy, and there were stitches above his left eye. His face was scratched up horribly. There was a tube coming out of his mouth, keeping it open, and his neck was being supported by a brace. His chest was bare, covered in bruises, and his shoulders were covered in scrapes as well. He had an ace bandage around his abdomen just like Niall had, and so much more… Niall felt tears come to his eyes. “Please take me closer to him…” he whispered as his eyes grazed over Liam’s body. He couldn’t believe this was Liam. He couldn’t believe this was really him. The doctor sighed, but eventually agreed and wheeled him forward. Niall reached out and wrapped his hand over Liam’s left hand, trying not to grab too tightly. Usually, the hand grabbed back, but this time, it didn’t. This time, it was cold, and it felt so lifeless and limp. It was a shock, and this was just what made the situation so real.

He leaned over a bit, wanting to be closer to Liam, and his head only got as far as the mattress, since the bed was up higher than Niall would have liked. He felt the tears prick in his eyes again, and this time, he didn’t stop them from falling. “You’re going to get through this… Y-you will get through this… You have to…”


	10. Chapter 10

Darkness. That’s all there was. It was dark, and nothing else. There were no sounds, no lights, nothing. There was nothing to touch, nothing to smell or taste, nothing to see, nothing to hear, and the darkness overwhelmed everything.

The darkness consumed all there was.

What happened to life? What happened to everything that there was? There was no breathing, no blinking, no moving anymore. Everything was so still that it was daunting. It just didn’t seem right. What happened to living and everything there was to life? What happened to water and wind, fire, the ground to stand on? What happened to music and voices, and the sounds nature had to bring? How about emotions? What happened to love and hate, and tears and smiles? They were nonexistent now.

Everything was nonexistent now.

 

Liam tried to reach out, but there was nothing to reach for. He couldn’t move, he couldn’t blink, or breathe. It was just blank, and he felt locked up and stuck. Was life a lie? Was this what there really was to look forward to?

Was Liam dead?

He didn’t feel dead, but he did feel lost. He felt unsure of everything now, and it was just a giant mess. This was just… it was wrong. He wanted what he had back. He wanted to be living and breathing again. He wanted to move, and he wanted to feel. What happened to him? Why was he like this? Why couldn’t he go back to what he had and just… live?

Liam wanted anything to move, and to feel again. He wanted anything to see and have something to hold onto. Liam wanted his life back. But what if this was all there was left? What if the darkness was actually life and what he had before never existed? What if this was what he had left? His brain was in overload with this information, and as he thought more about it, it just hurt. But what did it hurt? He couldn’t feel himself move, he couldn’t see, he was just there. There was nothing there left to hurt.

Why did this feel so real? So… god-awfully real and painfully true? Couldn’t this just be a bad dream, trying to overlap Liam and control him? Couldn’t this just be some joke, cruel and unusual? Liam didn’t want to think about it anymore. He just wanted to give up. He wanted to fall back into the darkness, and let it win.

Liam felt tired, and he felt like he was going to sleep. Why not, right? There was nothing left, and Liam could do what he wanted. If he couldn’t do anything else, sleeping sounded like a good idea, right? The darkness closed in on him again, and it felt almost heavier than before. Was that possible? Could darkness actually be heavy like this? It just seemed like the right thing to do to let it win this time around. Maybe the joke would end and Liam would have everything back if he just let the darkness…

Li-am… c’mon… you’re alright… baby, just… wake up for me, please? Squeeze my hand… something? I need you…

What was that? Was that a sound? It tingled Liam, sending shivers through the body he couldn’t see. Whatever it was, Liam liked it. But, the darkness was just about to take over. Shouldn’t he let it win so he could get back to living? Wasn’t that the plan?

And I miss you… I miss you so much, and I just… Open your eyes for me? Can you do that?

Why did the sound seem so… painful? Why was the sound so distraught like that? Liam couldn’t just leave the voice like that, right? He had to fix it. The voice was too beautiful for Liam to leave just like that. It was too beautiful to sound so broken. Liam had to do something. He didn’t know what, but he had to do something.

The voice went missing, and Liam was getting confused. Where did it go? Was it afraid of something? Was it in pain? Liam didn’t want the voice to be any of that. He just wanted to comfort it. But Liam couldn’t speak, so how could he fix whatever was wrong? He couldn’t reach out, which didn’t matter, because he couldn’t see anything anyway. There was nothing for Liam to reach out to. Well, maybe the voice was leaving for good, then? Liam could go back to giving in to the darkness? But, now that he thought about it like that, was giving in really the best way to go about this? Couldn’t he fight it, or something?

I wish you could hear me, or just react to me… I wish I knew you were still there… Baby, I need you back… I miss you so much, and I just… please…

Did Liam do something to the voice? It kept saying “you” as if the voice was directed to Liam. Was that true? Maybe Liam did something to the voice after all? If Liam caused it any harm, he needed to apologize. He didn’t like hurting people, or anything, really. But what did Liam do to the voice? He needed to find out. But, he couldn’t even ask yet. When would it be Liam’s turn to say something? The darkness was controlling too much.

Once again, the voice was gone, and Liam started to think. Maybe the darkness wasn’t a good thing after all, and he needed to figure out how to get out of it. He needed to fix the voice, if it ever came back, that was.

Maybe the darkness was trying to hurt Liam? Maybe it wasn’t good for him at all. He wanted to get away from it now. He wanted to get back to the voice, and he needed to go back to living again. Letting the darkness win wouldn’t get him anything he wanted. No, he couldn’t let it win. Not this time.

Sh-shit… I promised not t-to cry again… I promised… I’m sorry, I just… I have to… Liam, this hurts… It hurts so much. I just want you back… I want you here…

So Liam was the cause of the pain. Liam was the reason the voice sounded so broken. This wasn’t right at all, and he wanted to call out. But more than anything, he just wanted to hear the voice some more.

 

Do you think this is some game, Liam? Are you trying to get back at me? Are you? Well, haha, I get it now, you’re so funny Liam! Now wake up! Stop playing tricks on me and just wake up already, okay? Please, Liam… Stop trying to be funny… stop it…

Liam wasn’t trying to be funny. What was he doing that the voice thought this was Liam trying to be funny? It didn’t make any sense.

LIAM, WAKE UP GODDAMNIT! I’M SORRY I LOST MY MEMORY! I’M SORRY I PUT YOU THROUGH THIS HELL! I’M SORRY FOR HOW HORRIBLE I WAS TO YOU! NOW STOP THIS RIGHT NOW! WAKE UP!

The voice sounded so… angry. It scared Liam, and Liam didn’t like this side of the voice. But then again, Liam liked the voice more than the darkness around him and he really could have done with more of that than the darkness.

You hate me, don’t you? You hate me because of what I put you through. That’s why you’re doing this. You’re doing this to get back at me, and you want me to feel how you felt. I’m sorry for being such a horrible screw up, Liam. I’m sorry for hurting you and making you miserable, but this isn’t fair. Just… fuck, Liam. Wake up… please…

This really hurt Liam. Liam was awake, right there, and yet, he couldn’t tell the voice that he was okay and awake. He didn’t hate the voice at all, but he knew he needed to tell it that. But he didn’t know how to speak…

Shit… Sorry, I really… I didn’t mean that. I’m sorry. I am so sorry… I just want you back so badly… please baby, come back to me…

Liam wasn’t mad. The more he fought, the more he felt himself coming back to life. The more he fought to get to the voice, the more he started to remember. That voice was familiar… He knew him. Liam felt like he knew who it was, and yet, he couldn’t put a finger on it. He was someone Liam knew, though, and he knew very well that he was in pain. Liam hated that, too, that he couldn’t fix this and make it right.

My boss told me today that I either had to start coming to work, or they had to replace me… She’s been really forgiving about this, but I just can’t leave you… I won’t leave your side, Liam… I know you can’t hear me, and you can’t respond, but just… You should know that I’m always here, and I’m never leaving you, okay? I just… I need you, and if something happens…

Liam could hear the sobbing, the soft cries, and it twisted him up inside. He fought as hard as he could, trying to shout out now. “I’m here! I’m awake!” he called out, finally feeling as if he could do things. Things were starting to come back to him, and most of all, he knew he had to get out of this darkness now. It wasn’t safe for him anymore.

My mum paid the rent this month, since I haven’t been working and haven’t been getting paid… And well, I can’t make her do that again, but I don’t know what to do… There’s so little I can do from here… I hate it, but It’s better than leaving you…

 

I just want to feel your hand again. I mean, I can hold it, but I want to feel you holding it back, you know? I want to hear your voice again… I want… I want you back…

“I’m right here!” Liam shouted, trying so hard. He wished he could hear Liam, but it just wans’t working. He was causing so much trouble. How much time had passed since he fell into the darkness? He hated this. He hated not being able to do anything, and he hated being stuck here.

Well… So… uhm, today the doctors told me that you might be able to hear me… And I didn’t know that all the times I was talking to you, you might be able to. I mean, I was just talking to you as if it was you anyway… But…Heh… Now I know that you might actually be able to hear this, and… Just know that I miss you, okay? I miss you so much, Li…

S-sorry… I’m not trying to cry… I’ve been crying every day for the last three weeks… I just miss you so much, and I want you back here… I promised not to cry, damn it! I promised to be strong for you and to make it through this for you, but I can’t anymore, Liam… I just can’t do this anymore. I need you back, you don’t understand how much I need you back in my life and how much I miss you…Now I know what you went through with me… Now I know how much of a pain it must have been, and I was awake… It must have been so frustrating too… I am so sorry…

A-anyway… I was… uh… I wanted to say some things I guess… I mean, I know it won’t make a difference, but… Liam… I… I remember you. I remember everything about you… I remember everything about us… I remember our first date and when I carved our initials into the tree, I remember going home and I remember calling you like ten minutes later because I wanted to hear your voice again…

I remember our first kiss and how perfect it was, even if it was really quick and I wished it had never ended. Our second kiss was even better, but the first will always be amazing… I can remember the day you asked me to make things official with you, and how excited we both were that things were just working out so perfectly… But remember how scared we were before then? Remember how we were both just so afraid that things wouldn’t work out? But look how far we’ve come…

I remember when we told your parents and how nervous you were to tell them, and that you would be disappointing them… But they weren’t disappointed at all. They were actually happy for you because they knew that somewhere along the line, you were lost somehow… And then remember when we stayed at my parent’s house and we hadn’t told them yet? Remember when my brother walked in on us and we were sleeping together? Thank god we weren’t doing anything, but that took a lot of explaining… And then we told them and everything was fine?

Then… Our first time… God, you were so scared, Li… I was too, since I didn’t know if I would like it or anything, but you were so gentle and caring… And you made is so romantic and it was beyond perfect. I was so glad we decided to do that, because things would be so different if we hadn’t done that then…

Do you remember when we moved in together? I remember how excited we both were, but then we started to fight about where to put everything and we couldn’t agree on anything. We got so mad at each other that you stayed in the guest room for the night and I felt so bad that eventually I went to the guest room and crawled into bed with you and you apologized and I did too… And then we stayed up all night talking about where to put everything and we compromised on everything… I don’t think we got any sleep that night…

I can remember celebrating your birthday the first time as a couple, and how much you just wanted to spend the day with me rather than with family, but I made you spend it with your family and you came back and said that if I ever did that again, you would do the same to me and… I don’t know why I’m bringing this one up, since it’s not really an important one, hehe… I just love it so much. I love remembering everything about you.

And Liam… I remember… our anniversary… I remember your proposal, and I remember the ring and you getting down on one knee… I remember what you said word for word, Liam… I will never forget those words for the rest of my life. I couldn’t even if I wanted to, which I never would…

‘Niall, in the past four years of my life, I have made a best friend… When I first met you, I knew that we were going to spend more time together than I had ever spent with anyone. I knew we were going to be best friends, and I knew that… every moment together with you had to be great. What I didn’t know was that in two years… I-I was going to fall in love with you. I didn’t know how m-much I had fallen in love with your smile, how much time I spent just looking in your eyes, and how much I just loved your addicting personality… and that-t laugh that keeps me going for days at a time… I didn’t know that I would start to learn things about you like how you like your morning tea, or how you h-hate when your socks are folded before they are put in the drawer. I didn’t know that I would meet y-your family and fall in love with them as much as you love them. I didn’…t know… I was going to wake up with you next to me every morning and I didn’t know I was going to get to have you… so closely in my life. I am grateful for all of that, and I need-d you in my life more than you un… understand. A few months ago, I woke up, watching your chest rise and fall as you slept and realized that I want to spend the r-r-rest of my life with you because of how much I care for you and love you, because of how much love you give to me unconditionally and because I know that I will never be able to live my life without you in it. You are everything to me and I couldn’t imagine being in a world without you in it. So… Niall James Horan, will you marry me?’

Liam… I w-want to marry you. I meant what I said, and I want to marry you so badly…I want to call you my husband, and I want to have a family with you. I want to watch our kids grow together and I want to have a house with you, and have grandchildren and have more memories with you… I want to grow old together Liam… I just… I want you to be back… Please, wake up, Liam…

It was Niall. It was Niall, and Liam was hurting him. Liam was still asleep, and he couldn’t get out of the dreadful darkness. “I’m awake! I’m right here! I swear!” But it wasn’t working. There was no response. “Please! I’m right here, Niall! I am right here, with you!” He fought more and more, trying to struggle against the darkness and make it go away. If he would do anything, the last thing he would do was beat that darkness and get back to Niall.

Liam… I love you… I love you so much, and I just want you back… please, come back… please… I love you.. I love you…

“I’m here, Niall! I’m right here!” Liam thrashed and pushed as hard as he could, fighting the darkness so hard that he could feel himself breaking through it. Liam continued to push through, to fight and to get out until he could feel himself getting closer. “I love you. Love you so much…”

After the last four words Liam said, he could feel the darkness lift off of him, and a new darkness swarmed around him. He knew he had won, and he tightened his grip on Niall’s hand before slipping back, that new darkness comforting him and putting him at rest.

________________________________

Niall’s chest trembled as he held onto Liam’s hand, trying to control his breathing. Every day had been like this for the last three weeks, and Niall wanted anything to just bring Liam back to consciousness. A sob ripped through his chest and tore through him brutally. If Liam didn’t wake up, Niall was done for. Niall would have nothing else, and he would just be a shell. Liam gave Niall life. Liam meant everything and more to Niall, and he just wanted him back. There was so much left for them. They has so much left to do in life and Niall wasn’t about to give up yet.

“Liam… I love you… I love you so much, and I just want you back… please, come back… please… I love you.. I love you…” Niall said, desperately, bowing his head and putting it on Liam’s seemingly lifeless shoulder. He didn’t want to think about the possibility of Liam not waking up. Not now, not ever.

Niall finally lifted his head to look at Liam’s face, blurry-eyed and red-faced like he had been for the majority of the days he spent in the room. Liam didn’t look like himself in the hospital gown and covered in tubes and wires. He didn’t look like himself with his head shaved like it was and gauze wrapped around him, a cast on his arm. He didn’t look like himself lying in the hospital bed, hardly breathing and not moving at all. But it was Liam, and Niall knew it was. His soft skin was still there, no matter how cold it really was. His brunette hair, even if most of it was gone now. His strong shoulders, unharmed by the accident save for a few minor scratches. Liam was still there, underneath the wires and hospital gown.

Niall watched Liam carefully, trying to calm himself down, and he smiled down to their hands, feeling Liam gently grasp at his hand. It made him feel better than before, and when he looked up, he smiled to see Liam’s lips moving, trying to form sentences, and he heard the whispered “Love you so much” escape from Liam’s mouth.

Coma patients don’t move, you idiot! Niall nearly fell out of the chair trying to stand up, his grasp on Liam’s hand tightening. “Liam?” he said, his voice cracking near the end. Liam had just spoken. He had moved his hand and he had spoken. His lips moved. “Liam, baby, please…” Niall said, feeling the joy build up inside him and create new tears. He suddenly reached over and pressed the nurse call button, unable to move from Niall’s side. This was really happening.

“What’s up?” One of the nurses that had frequently visited Niall and Liam stepped in, and Niall’s eyes lit up. “Niall, what happened?”

“His hand moved. And he just spoke,” Niall said, unable to get the words out faster. The nurse stepped in closer and looked at a few things, and she smiled, taking a step back, mumbling something about getting the doctor. Niall knew that Liam was okay. Niall was going to have his baby back.

_______________________________________________

Niall wasn’t sure how long he waited, but he didn’t care. When Liam moved, he felt like time wasn’t even an object anymore. He could wait and give Liam all the time he needed. The doctor said that it was typical for a coma patient to go back to sleep, even if they had just woke up. He said it might take a while for him to come back to full consciousness, but it would happen, and Niall was beyond ecstatic. But, he sat in the chair, nearly falling asleep after staying awake for 36 hours, waiting patiently for Liam to wake up. He wanted to just wake him up, but he knew he couldn’t.

Niall needed to move, or he knew he was going to fall asleep, so he stood up and paced around the room, thinking about what to say when Liam woke up. What if he couldn’t remember Niall? What if he couldn’t remember just like Niall didn’t remember? Liam was strong enough to get through that, but Niall knew that he wouldn’t be strong enough to get through something like that.

“N-Niall…?” Niall’s head show up to Liam, and he watched as Liam tried to open his eyes, and Niall’s heart nearly stopped. Liam was moving and awake. He was awake.

“Hi, baby,” Niall said softly, approaching the side of Liam’s bed, watching as he finally opened his eyes, blinking quite a bit.

Liam turned his head a little, and Niall moved so Liam could see him, and Niall watched as Liam’s lips curled up into a smile. “Hi…” the dry, raspy voice said. I was Liam’s voice, though, and Niall couldn’t have been happier.

Niall felt the tears well up in his eyes, and prick viciously at his eyelids. His baby was awake. His baby was talking. His baby was back. “I… I missed you…” he whispered, taking a step closer and watching as Liam’s eyes followed him. Liam lifted his arm, and Niall took the invitation, sliding onto the hospital bed carefully and leaning down to hug Liam, digging into the fabric of the hospital gown. He felt another sob break through his chest, and he pressed his face into Liam’s shoulder, trying so hard to be gentle, since he knew how weak Liam must have felt.

“It’s okay…” Liam said, wrapping his arm around Niall delicately. “Shhh…” Liam lifted his casted arm, a bit surprised to know his arm was broken, but put it on Niall’s side anyway, curling his fingers into the fabric of Niall’s shirt.

They sat like that for a long time, until Niall sat up and smiled weakly to Liam. “I am so glad you’re back…”

Liam blinked a bit. He figured Niall must have meant that Liam was asleep for a while, but the way that Niall reacted to this whole thing, he could tell that he was out for quite some time. “How… how long?” he asked, finding more strength to talk to Niall.

“Three weeks and two days…” Niall said quickly. “It was the longest three weeks and two days of my life…” he admitted, letting out a bit of a laugh, causing Liam to smile. “I think… I need to tell you something…” Niall said, a smile spreading on his face.

Liam nodded, returning the smile. “What is it?”

Niall took a breath, and stared into Liam’s eyes. “I remember everything.”

With that, Liam didn’t hesitate to tug Niall back down and crash his lips into Niall’s. He had been waiting to do that for so long…


End file.
